By Tim Coyle
The military component commanders, senior staff officers, together with a select group of defence civilians and foreign affairs representatives settled into their seats in the Joint Operations Command headquarters. They were gathering to formulate a plan to manage a response to the unprecedented deployment of a People’s Republic of China (PRC) People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) force – comprising a destroyer, a frigate, and an underway replenishment ship headed into the nation’s exclusive economic zone.
