{"id":738249,"date":"2026-06-15T14:48:50","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T14:48:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/738249\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T14:48:50","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T14:48:50","slug":"what-the-rapid-development-of-the-pla-means-for-australia-the-diplomat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/738249\/","title":{"rendered":"What the Rapid Development of the PLA Means for Australia \u2013 The Diplomat"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seventy-six years ago, the People\u2019s Republic of China launched its first flagship, the Nanchang. This was the ship\u2019s third life. First known as the Uji and then the Changzhi, it had been delivered to the Communists by Nationalist mutineers, and the Nationalists themselves acquired the ship as a prize of war from Japan.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the 21st century, Beijing does not need hand-me-downs for its military.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Through an impressive and sustained industrial push, the People\u2019s Liberation Army (PLA) has expanded and modernized, aiming to become a \u201cworld class military\u201d by mid-century. Already it boasts the world\u2019s largest navy, expansive cyber capabilities, and a massive array of rockets and missiles.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This expansion is not just significant in absolute terms. It is not possible to think about the PLA\u2019s expansion without considering its peer competitor, the United States. While the U.S. military remains the pre-eminent military force as its power relative to the PLA diminishes, the international landscape changes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The implications of these changes are of great consequence to Australia.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Any robust conversation about Australian defense policy \u2013 how we structure and invest in our own capabilities as well as what partnerships we form \u2013 must be informed by all the facts. And a signal fact is that, as Sam Roggeveen and I show in a recent report for the Lowy Institute<\/a>, the PLA\u2019s military expansion is steadily chipping away at one of Australia\u2019s principal defensive assets: geography.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The PLA\u2019s growing force of long-range bombers and missiles will be able to threaten parts of Northern Australia in the future, eroding the sanctuary provided by geography. In the case of China\u2019s highly sophisticated cyber capability, geography provides no sanctuary at all.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The growth of the PLA Navy\u2019s (PLAN) blue-water fleet \u2013 from destroyers to frigates to submarines to aircraft carriers to replenishment ships \u2013 demonstrates China\u2019s aspirations for a global navy. Long-range expeditions such as Task Group 107\u2019s circumnavigation of Australia<\/a> in 2025 will become increasingly common.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Our report does not ascribe any specific intentions from China in relation to Australia. But knowing what capabilities a state has is as important to defense planning as any assessment of their intentions \u2013 indeed, capabilities inform intentions.<\/p>\n

A better understanding of another state\u2019s capabilities means better planning by Australia. The National Defense Strategy says that the Australian Defense Force (ADF) must deter threats, shape Australia\u2019s environment, and respond to contingencies. The changing military balance in the Indo-Pacific affects the scale of those threats, the nature of that environment, and the substances of those contingencies.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

In Chinese planning, a contingency involving forced unification with Taiwan remains a central issue. An attack on Australia, therefore, is not a high or even a medium priority. But to threaten Australian interests, one does not need to strike Australian territory.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The disruption to international trade caused by the U.S. military adventure in Iran has demonstrated in no uncertain terms that Australia is not immune to shocks occurring on the other side of the world. Should Beijing take action to change the status quo regarding Taiwan, it would disrupt some of the world\u2019s busiest shipping lanes \u2013 shipping lanes that carry enormous amounts of Australian exports and imports.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Moreover, should such a Taiwan contingency occur, the debate would not be over if Australia should be involved. Australia operates installations key to the U.S. military presence in Asia \u2013 like Pine Gap and North West Cape \u2013 hosts an important contingent of U.S. Marines in Darwin, and is expanding the RAAF base at Tindal to host U.S. strategic bombers. In the event of a war, these sites would certainly be targets, and would be in range.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With the likelihood that China will project force closer to Australia in the coming decades, we cannot pretend that the country is under an imminent threat. But neither can we pretend we are insulated from threats.<\/p>\n

For the scale of the challenges faced, the ADF cannot be seen as an impersonal arm of policy. How it shapes the regional environment, and deters and responds to threats, affects all Australians. Understanding how the region\u2019s military build-up is changing Australia\u2019s circumstances, therefore, is vital. An informed public is more empowered to engage in substantive conversations about defense.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If these are \u201cthe most challenging circumstances Australia has faced since the Second World War,\u201d such conversations are not just useful; they are imperative.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Seventy-six years ago, the People\u2019s Republic of China launched its first flagship, the Nanchang. This was the ship\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":738250,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,356475,512,356476,356477,356478,40185,44,677,4206],"class_list":["post-738249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-security","tag-china","tag-china-military-build-up","tag-china-military-modernization","tag-chinese-navy-exercises-in-the-tasman-sea","tag-east-asia","tag-news","tag-oceania","tag-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738249","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=738249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/738250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=738249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=738249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=738249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}