By Sean Andrews*
When Anthony Albanese raised concerns in Beijing about the PLA Navy’s live-fire exercise off Australia’s east coast, Xi Jinping’s reply was blunt: Chinese ships will exercise where they like in international waters, just as others do. That answer has been treated in Canberra as a political irritant and a domestic “gotcha” moment. It is better understood as something else: a public Chinese endorsement of the very freedoms and customary naval practices that underpin Australian and allied sea power. (From: The Australian Institute of International Affairs.)
