A nation’s military serves two purposes: protection of the homeland through deterrence and defense and the projection of power to shape decisions far beyond the nation’s borders. As China has pursued the relentless modernization of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), that effort has largely focused on national defense.
Recently, however, China has been demonstrating its ability to project power. This week, Chinese ships conducted military exercises, including live-fire drills, in waters near Australia and New Zealand. While legal, the moves expose as hypocrisy Beijing’s regular assertions that it is concerned only with defense. China is acting like any other great-power wannabe: using its military to show smaller nations that it can reach out and touch them if it so wishes.
Last week, three People's Liberation Army Navy ships entered Australian waters and traveled down the country’s east coast. The vessels included a PLAN destroyer (one of the most modern in its inventory), a frigate and a replenishment vessel — a submarine was also thought to have accompanied them, but that could not be confirmed. At one point, the ships were about 150 nautical miles from Sydney, within the country’s exclusive economic zone, or EEZ.
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