Chinese firing exercise not likely to be the last near NZ

Monday, 24 February 2025

Join the conversation in comments below

A short notice, live firing exercise by Chinese warships between New Zealand and Australia puts squarely into focus the relationship with New Zealand’s biggest trading partner ‒ and whether Kiwis should expect similar events to happen again.

On Saturday, personnel on HMNZS Te Kaha saw live rounds being fired from the main gun of the Chinese cruiser Zunyi, one of three People’s Liberation Army ships ‒ the second live firing exercise undertaken by the Chinese Navy in the Tasman Sea.

Commercial flights were forced to divert course “due to the lack of advanced notification of the firing”, which was issued via a radio message and not the “standard practice of providing a Notice to Airmen”, a spokesperson from the New Zealand Defence Force said.

Director of the Centre for Strategic Studies at Victoria University of Wellington David Capie stressed while the events were consistent with international law, “it's just that we haven't had it on our doorstep before, and we haven't had these kind of live firing exercises.

“It's a reminder that this really sharp competition that's playing out now is coming closer and closer to our neighbourhood.”

If New Zealand should expect similar events in the future, Capie said, “I don't think we want to overreact to this, but I do think that this is going to become more common.

“We've seen Chinese naval vessels increasingly visiting the South Pacific over the last few years, we know that there have been similar activities like this around Australia's Exclusive Economic Zone before.

“China has built the world's largest navy, and it's focused on this region.

“I think we are going to see more displays of China's maritime power and … we're going to see more of these activities, more of those demonstrations of capability, closer to New Zealand.”

While the Australian and New Zealand governments were quick to downplay the risk from both countries’ largest trading partner ‒ PM Anthony Albanese saying the live fire drills were consistent with international law and PM Christopher Luxon saying the same ‒ Luxon was quick to add that more notice would have been good and “there might be a better place to do live fire drills… [than] a busy international airspace”.

“It is different from what we have observed before, there is no doubt about it,” he said.

Defence Minister Judith Collins on Monday morning told RNZ there had been “a very short amount of notice, a couple hours” of the live fire exercises, which was less than the 12 or 24 hours notice New Zealand would consider best practice.

She said the ships were, as of Monday morning, 280 nautical miles off the coast of Tasmania.

China responded to the commentary from Australia late Sunday, saying the issue had been “deliberately exagerrated”.

'Australia's claims are completely unfounded,' said China's Ministry of National Defense spokesperson Wu Qian.

'Despite being fully aware of the fact, Australia has unjustly criticized China … we are astonished and strongly dissatisfied with this.“

On the politically awkward position New Zealand was in, Capie said: “China is a really important economic partner but we also have important security interests that China is increasingly challenging.

“We're not the only ones in that position ‒ Australia is too. Successive governments have gradually been more willing to speak up in defence of those security interests, rightly so, but in a case like this, it's also important not to overreact.'

The three warships had been in the Tasman unannounced since about the middle of last week.

Asked why China chose the waters between New Zealand and Australia to carry out the exercise, Capie said, “you can always try and speculate about it being a particular response to events that have happened in the recent past, for example, Australia and New Zealand sailing through the Taiwan Strait last year together … what we can say for sure is that China is learning to project capabilities further and further away from its home waters”.

He said those types of missions provided China with an opportunity to practice, while also having “a signalling and [a] demonstration effect of saying, ‘hey, look what we can do’, also saying a bit of, ‘if you think you can do stuff in our waters, here's what it looks like when we come back’”.