Australia’s navy is no match for China’s built-up force

Over the past few days, the Australian media has been dominated by the activities of the Chinese navy’s Task Group 107 as it has progressed south along the Australian coast and conducted a series of live-fire exercises.

Much of the discussion has been rather breathless in nature, with accusations of “gunboat diplomacy” being bandied around.

The live-fire exercises have also dominated the Australian political debate. Amid all the accusations, the fact that these exercises are routine and entirely legal has gotten lost.

The Australian government was correct to lodge a complaint with its Chinese counterpart when one of these exercises disrupted civilian aviation. But the overall response has been an extraordinary overreaction.

There is no indication the Chinese vessels undertook any surface-to-air exercises, and it remains unclear whether the initial firings involved medium-calibre weapons or smaller arms.

Either way, the facts suggest the disruption from the Chinese vessels was caused by inexperience or poor procedure, rather than some more nefarious purpose.

This is not to suggest the People’s Liberation Army-Navy’s (PLA-N) deployment is unimportant, but as happens all too often, the Australian public debate is missing the wood for the trees.

While a number of retired naval officers have publicly played down the significance of the live-fire exercises, these voices have generally been drowned out by the politicisation of the issue. This highlights the failure of the Department of Defence to communicate effectively to the public.

In other countries, including the United States, senior officers are given far more leeway to make public statements in matters within their purview.

Had Vice Admiral Mark Hammond, the chief of navy, or Vice Admiral Justin Jones, the chief of Joint Operations, been empowered to explain how live-fire exercises are routine and are commonly carried out by Australian warships on deployment in our region, we may have avoided this unhelpful stoush.

The remarkable growth of the Chinese navy

The real significance of the activities of Task Group 107 is the way it has revealed the very different trajectories of the PLA-N and its Royal Australian Navy counterpart.

The task group is made up of a Type 055 Renhai-class cruiser, a Type 054A Jiangkai II frigate and a Type 903 Fuchi-class replenishment ship. This is a powerful force that symbolises the rapid development of the Chinese navy.

The Renhai-class cruisers are acknowledged to be some of the most capable surface combatants currently in operation.

They are 13,000 tonnes in size and are armed with 112 vertical-launch system (VLS) missile tubes. The Australian navy’s premier surface warship, the Hobart-class destroyer, is just 7,000 tonnes and has 48 VLS missiles cells.

These are very crude metrics, but it would be foolhardy to assume Chinese technology is dramatically inferior to that of Australia or its allies. Similarly, China’s Type 054A frigates are comparable to the general-purpose frigates that Australia is currently trying to acquire.

Since 2020, China has commissioned eight Type 055 cruisers, adding to a fleet of more than 30 Type 52C and Type 52D destroyers and an even greater number of Type 054A frigates.

This build-up vastly exceeds that of any other navy globally. Chinese shipyards are churning out the same combat power of the entire Royal Australian Navy every couple of years.

Until recently, we have seen remarkably little of this naval capability in our region. A PLA-N task force operated off the northeast coast of Australia in 2022. Last year, a similar force was in the South Pacific. Most analysts expect to see more Chinese vessels in Australia’s region over the coming years.

One significant limitation on Chinese overseas deployments has been the PLA-N’s small force of replenishment ships, which resupply naval vessels at sea.

As the PLA-N’s capabilities continue to grow and priorities shift, this appears to be changing. A recent US Department of Defence report noted that China was expected to build further replenishment ships “to support its expanding long-duration combatant ship deployments”.

Australia struggling to keep up

In response to the Chinese build-up, Australia is investing heavily to rebuild its navy. However, this process has been slow and beset by problems.

Indeed, this week, the Defence Department revealed that the selection of the design for the new Australian frigate has been postponed into 2026.

This leaves the navy with a limited fleet of just 10 surface combatants, the majority of which are small and ageing Anzac-class frigates.

The arrival of the Chinese task group also sheds an unfavourable light on other recent decisions.

The cuts to the Arafura-class offshore patrol vessel program make sense from some perspectives. But these ships would have provided additional options to persistently shadow foreign warships in Australian areas of interest.

Similarly, the growing need of Australian ships to escort Chinese vessels in our region will place an increasing strain on Australian replenishment capability.

At present, both of Australia’s resupply ships are out of service. Additional capacity was also cut from the recent defence budget.

The activities of the Chinese task force are not some aggressive move of gunboat diplomacy in our region.

In many ways, this sensationalist messaging has distracted from a much bigger issue. The presence of Chinese naval ships in our region is going to be a fact of life. And due to failures from both sides of politics over the past 15 years, Australia’s navy is ill-equipped to meet that challenge.