Australian navy joins UK to conduct freedom of navigation exercises in contested South China Sea
The UK Defence Ministry's Permanent Joint Headquarters publicised the operation on social media on Tuesday — although the Australian Defence Force has not announced it publicly and has not yet responded to the ABC's questions about the activity.
"HMS SPEY and HMAS SYDNEY have just conducted Freedom of Navigation Activity around the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, in accordance with UNCLOS," it said on the social media site X.
The two countries conducted the drill while much of the world's attention remains focused on the US strikes on Iran and the threat of a broader conflagration in the Middle East.
Beijing claims almost the entirety of the South China Sea as its territory — despite a 2016 international ruling which found that claim invalid — and its navy and coast guard have repeatedly clashed with vessels from the Philippines, which is one of the South-East Asian nations which also has overlapping claims in the sea.
China and the Philippines have also had several potentially dangerous aerial encounters over the South China Sea, including in February, when China's military said it had expelled three Philippine aircraft from the Spratly Islands.
Australia has conducted freedom of navigation activities in the South China Sea with an expanding number of countries, including the US, Japan, Canada and the Philippines — which have all shown increasing resolve to assert their right to sail through the waters.
But Euan Graham from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute said it appeared to be the first time that the United Kingdom and Australia had conducted a publicly flagged freedom of navigation operation in the South China Sea by themselves.
He said both countries were "pushing back against China's excessive maritime claims and thickening military presence in the South China Sea" by asserting their right to navigation.
Mr Graham said Canberra was signalling that China's recent partial circumnavigation of the Australian mainland would not deter it from continuing to operate in the South China Sea.
Multiple Chinese analysts have suggested that Beijing was using the deployment to Australia to discourage the federal government from sending naval vessels into waters near China.
"There's a sense that Australia is stepping up its game and being present (in the South China Sea) at a time when China's navy is exerting its presence close to Australia," Mr Graham said.
The United Kingdom and Australia have already been stepping up joint naval activities in the region — including by taking part in an operation to enforce United Nations sanctions on North Korea.
In February British and Australian ships also joined the United States Navy in the South China Sea to conduct a "coordinated manoeuvring exercise", and last week China lashed the United Kingdom after HMS Spey flagged that it was sailing through the Taiwan Strait.
The British government has said that HMAS Sydney and HMS Spey will now sail to Singapore, where they will meet with the United Kingdom's carrier Prince of Wales and a Strike Group with a host of navy ships from the UK, Canada, Norway, New Zealand and Spain.
The Carrier Strike Group will then sail down to the Northern Territory to join Operation Talisman Sabre — massive Australia-US joint military exercises which will also draw in forces from more than a dozen other nations.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer says the deployment of the carrier and other British naval vessels to the region — along with around 4,000 UK military personnel — is aimed at "sending a clear message of strength to our adversaries, and a message of unity and purpose to our allies".
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