{"id":209781,"date":"2025-12-31T09:25:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T09:25:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/209781\/"},"modified":"2025-12-31T09:25:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T09:25:06","slug":"australia-says-deeply-concerning-destabilising-chinese-exercises-near-taiwan-risk-inflaming-regional-tension-australian-foreign-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/209781\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia says \u2018deeply concerning, destabilising\u2019 Chinese exercises near Taiwan risk inflaming regional tension | Australian foreign policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australia says it is deeply concerned about Chinese military exercises near Taiwan<\/a>, and has raised the issue with Chinese officials.<\/p>\n

In a statement released on Wednesday<\/a>, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Dfat) said the large-scale simulations risked destabilising the region and could result in an accident or escalation.<\/p>\n

The People\u2019s Liberation Army launched the expansive surprise attack simulation on Monday<\/a>, calling the war games \u201cJustice Mission 2025\u201d.<\/p>\n

Dfat said the exercises were \u201cdeeply concerning, destabilising and risk inflaming regional tensions\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAustralia strongly opposes any actions that increase the risk of accident, miscalculation or escalation. Differences should be managed through dialogue, not the use of force or coercion,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAustralia opposes any unilateral action to change the status quo across the Taiwan Strait. Peace and stability are in all our interests.<\/p>\n

\u201cAustralian officials have raised concerns with Chinese counterparts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/a><\/p>\n

The PLA, the armed wing of China\u2019s ruling Communist party, fired 27 missiles from the Chinese coastline into waters near Taiwan on Tuesday, according to Taiwan\u2019s defence ministry.<\/p>\n

At least 70 Chinese war planes, 11 navy ships and 14 from China\u2019s militarised coast guard were also detected.<\/p>\n

The Taiwanese defence ministry said the missiles came closer to Taiwan\u2019s main island than in previous live-fire drills.<\/p>\n

Some landed in Taiwan\u2019s 24-nautical mile contiguous zone, and at least 13 ships were also detected within those restricted waters, the ministry said.<\/p>\n

In the 24 hours from 6am on Monday, the military detected 130 war planes, 28 ships, amphibious assault ships, and one surveillance balloon.<\/p>\n

It is the sixth major PLA military exercise targeting Taiwan since 2022, when it launched days of live-fire drills in retaliation for the-then US speaker, Nancy Pelosi, visiting the island. In April, it held a two-day operation labelled Strait Thunder-2025A, prompting expectations for a \u201cB\u201d before year\u2019s end.<\/p>\n

Analysts said it was the first time the PLA had explicitly said it was practising deterring international involvement. Also, unusually, a number of PLA aircraft remained visible on radar platforms.<\/p>\n

Asked about the drills on Monday<\/a>, the US president, Donald Trump, said he had a great relationship with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, \u201cand he hasn\u2019t told me anything about it\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI certainly have seen it \u2026 I don\u2019t believe he is going to be doing it,\u201d Trump said, appearing to refer to an actual invasion. \u201cNothing worries me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beijing claims Taiwan is a Chinese province and is preparing to annex it militarily, with the aim of being capable of invasion by 2027, according to US intelligence from several years ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia says it is deeply concerned about Chinese military exercises near Taiwan, and has raised the issue with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":209782,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-209781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}