The day the sub deal was announced, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijan said Australia should “seriously consider whether to view China as a partner or a threat. Military tensions between China and Australia have been on the rise, and spiked in November when Canberra said it was entering a pact with the United States and United Kingdom to acquire nuclear-powered submarines. In May 2019, Australian pilots said they were targeted multiple times by commercial lasers during missions over the South China Sea.Īnd in a report in June 2018, US military officials told CNN that there were at least 20 suspected Chinese laser incidents in the eastern Pacific from September 2017 to June 2018. The incident is not the first report of Chinese vessels pointing lasers at Australian aircraft. It released photos of two Chinese ships with the statement, which, according to their hull numbers, are the guided-missile destroyer Hefei and the amphibious transport dock Jinggang Shan.Īustralia did not say which of the two ships pointed the laser at the Australian aircraft.Īfter the incident, the Chinese ships passed through the Torres Strait into the Coral Sea, the statement said.Ĭhina had no immediate comment on the Australian allegations. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) ship that pointed the laser at the Australian jet was one of two PLAN warships sailing east across the Arafura Sea at the time, the Australian military said. The incident occurred on Thursday, the statement said, when an Australian P-8A aircraft, a reconnaissance and anti-submarine warfare plane, was flying over the Arafura Sea, the body of water between Australia’s Northern Territory and the island of New Guinea to the north. Two Chinese People's Liberation Army warships are seen in an image released by the Australian military after it said one of the ships endangered an Australian plane with a laser.
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