Photos: Canberra Accuses Chinese ‘Spy Ship’ of ‘Aggressive Act’ By Sailing Near Western Australia
18:23 GMT 16.05.2022 (Updated: 18:25 GMT 16.05.2022)
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A Chinese reconnaissance ship sailing near Western Australia in recent days has provoked worry among members of the AUKUS bloc after it passed near a naval communications station. However, the vessel has remained in international waters.
Since at least May 9, the Type 815 (NATO reporting name Dongdiao-class) Haiwangxing, an advanced electromagnetic reconnaissance vessel, has been steaming along Western Australia’s northwestern coast, according to the Australian Ministry of Defense. The
According to a graphic posted by the ministry, the ship approached from the north near the Lombok Strait and passed by Exmouth twice before heading east along the coast toward Darwin, the capital of the Northern Territory, and the location of a large Australian military base that’s home to US troops.
"It is unusual in terms of the way in which it has come so far south and the way it's hugging the coastline as it heads up in the direction of Darwin," Australian Defense Minister Peter Dutton told reporters on Friday.
"It is an aggressive act particularly because it has come so far south - for it to come south of Exmouth is without precedent,” he added, according to Australia’s Special Broadcasting Service (SBS).
However, according to the graphic provided by Dutton’s ministry, the listening ship has made no hostile act, remaining outside Australia’s territorial waters that extend 12 nautical miles from the coastline. Its closest approach to the sensitive Naval Communication Station Harold E. Holt, located on a peninsula near Exmouth, was 70 nautical miles, the graphic says.
An Australian Defense Ministry graphic showing the path of the Chinese Type 815 electronic reconnaissance ship Haiwangxing off the coast of Western Australia, May 9 through May 12, 2022.
Responding to a press question about Dutton’s words, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said he had no specific knowledge of the ship or its mission, but said that Canberra “should view the situation with objectivity and calm, instead of making sensational comments aimed at fear-mongering.”
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison was a bit more diplomatic in his response, telling reporters that "what these events highlight is the serious times in which we live. They're looking at us and we're keeping a close eye on them.”
The Holt communications station is a massive array of antennas used to send very low frequency (VLF) radio transmissions to US, Australian, and other allied ships in the Indian and western Pacific oceans. Its massive transmission tower broadcasts at a frequency of just 19.8 kilohertz and with a transmission power of 1 megawatt, making it the most powerful such station in the Southern Hemisphere.
At that low frequency, speech transmission is impractical, so such broadcasts only include coded numbered data streams. The low frequency radio waves can also penetrate up to 131 feet of seawater, making them ideal for communicating with submerged submarines.
Naval Communication Station Harold E. Holt near Exmouth, Western Australia. The radio masts are part of a large wire antenna which is used to transmit very low frequency (VLF) radio waves to communicate with submerged submarines. This type of antenna is known as a "Goliath", a type of umbrella antenna, but has been heavily modified. It consists of a ring of steel masts which support a network of horizontal cables radiating from the central mast. The central mast acts as the radiating element, while the horizontal cables serve as a capacitive top-load, creating a large capacitor with the ground. This serves to increase the current in the central radiator, increasing the radiated power.
Lu Li-Shih, a former instructor at Taiwan’s Naval Academy in Kaohsiung, told the South China Morning Post (SCMP) that Beijing sending another Type 815 recon vessel near Australia implies the People’s Liberation Army may be making tours near Australian waters “regular missions.”
“Beijing may take Canberra as a potential rival given the clout of AUKUS and the Quad,” he added.
The two power blocs, both of which include the United States and Australia, have been formed in recent years and represent largely complementary efforts at coordinating defense and political moves. They are both all but openly directed against China, competition with which Washington has said is its primary strategic focus. Primary US strategy documents have labeled China, Russia, and several other states as “malign actors” and threats to the “rules-based international order,” another name for the US-centered global order formed after World War 2 and further solidified after the end of the Cold War, when the US became the world’s unrivaled superpower.
The Type 815 (NATO reporting name Dongdiao-class) Haiwangxing, an advanced electromagnetic reconnaissance vessel spotted off the coast of Western Australia in May 2022.
Lu told the SCMP that China’s Type 815 “spy ship” plays “a key role in electromagnetic warfare,” a major realm of competition.
“The radar aperture on the Type 815 spy ship is able to receive a variety of different frequencies and spectra released by Australian and American warships in long distances that could become important data for electromagnetic warfare,” Lu told SCMP.
China has nine such vessels, which typically spend their time in the waters near Taiwan, but they have also been spotted elsewhere, such as a Type 815 that sailed near the Australian coast last summer, likely intending to watch the US-Australian "Talisman Saber” war games.
