{"id":56011,"date":"2025-08-09T19:13:06","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T19:13:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/56011\/"},"modified":"2025-08-09T19:13:06","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T19:13:06","slug":"new-zealand-and-australia-seek-closer-military-ties-following-chinese-live-fire-naval-exercise-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/56011\/","title":{"rendered":"New Zealand and Australia seek closer military ties following Chinese live-fire naval exercise"},"content":{"rendered":"

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) \u2014 The leaders of New Zealand<\/a> and Australia<\/a> on Saturday discussed closer cooperation between their expanding militaries against the backdrop of a recent extraordinary Chinese live-fire exercise<\/a> near their shores.<\/p>\n

New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon<\/a> hosted his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese<\/a> at the tourist city of Queenstown for their second annual bilateral leaders\u2019 meeting.<\/p>\n

Luxon said his country wanted closer military cooperation with Australia, a country he describes as New Zealand\u2019s \u201conly ally.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA big focus for us has been interoperability with Australia. We want to be a force multiplier,\u201d Luxon told reporters.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to be one, sort of, essential Anzac force essentially operating within our region,\u201d he added, referring to the Australian New Zealand Army Corps in which the two nations\u2019 soldiers first fought together during World War I.<\/p>\n

The summit follows a Chinese naval flotilla firing weapons in February in the Tasman Sea, which separates Australia and New Zealand. The exercise forced commercial airlines to divert flights.<\/p>\n

The Chinese navy rarely ventures so far south and the mission that partially circumnavigated Australia was seen as a demonstration of China\u2019s growing military reach.<\/p>\n

Albanese said last month that he complained to China\u2019s President Xi Jinping<\/a> during a state visit to Beijing about the lack of notice the Chinese had given of the live-fire exercise. Xi replied that Australia also engaged in exercises, referring to freedom of navigation missions conducted by Australian military in the disputed South China Sea.<\/p>\n

Albanese and Luxon recognized their countries face the most unpredictable and dangerous strategic environment in decades and their alliance plays a critical role in protecting and advancing their shared interest in the region, they said in a joint statement.<\/p>\n

The prime ministers also commended progress over the past year to intensify defense cooperation and integration. <\/p>\n

While the statement did not mention China, the prime ministers confirmed their most important trading partner was discussed.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, the geostrategic competition, in particular between the great powers, is something that countries like Australia and New Zealand do discuss together and we cooperate politically,\u201d Albanese said.<\/p>\n

Luxon said \u201cboth countries have followed pretty much the same playbook\u201d in their bilateral dealings with China.<\/p>\n

\u201cChina\u2019s an important world power. It\u2019s important that we can engage,\u201d Luxon said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe genuinely are able to have a conversation \u2014 I think a very mature one now \u2014 to say, look, we do have very different histories, we do have different systems, we do have different values, that does mean we do have differences. Good partners should be not afraid to talk about those things,\u201d Luxon added.<\/p>\n

Luxon announced in April a plan to make the New Zealand Defense Force more combat capable that would double defense spending to more than 2% of GDP. He described the rise from around 1% over the past two decades as \u201ca big step up for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a demonstration of Tokyo seeking deeper strategic ties in the South Pacific, Japanese warships<\/a> docked in New Zealand on Friday for the first time in almost 90 years.<\/p>\n

Australia announced this week Japan\u2019s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries will build a fleet of 11 Australian naval frigates<\/a> with a contract expected to be worth $6.5 billion. <\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s most expensive defense expansion is a submarine deal with the United States and Britain that is expected to cost up to $245 billion. Under the trilateral partnership known by the acronym AUKUS<\/a>, Australia will acquire a fleet of eight submarines powered by U.S. nuclear technology. <\/p>\n

U.S. President Donald Trump<\/a> has urged western countries to increase their defense budgets and rely less on the U.S. for their security.<\/p>\n

Albanese told reporters on Saturday: \u201cIf people argue that we should increase our defense spending, we are.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) \u2014 The leaders of New Zealand and Australia on Saturday discussed closer cooperation between their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2324,77,63,15390,512,32312,44079,2490,45622,482,43,16201,27112,38674,1736,46314,44,84,41,39,42,40,1346,9731],"class_list":["post-56011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-anthony-albanese","tag-asia-pacific","tag-australia","tag-australia-government","tag-china","tag-china-government","tag-christopher-luxon","tag-donald-trump","tag-fires","tag-general-news","tag-headlines","tag-ltd","tag-military-and-defense","tag-mitsubishi-heavy-industries","tag-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand-government","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-world-news","tag-xi-jinping"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}