The appearance of three Chinese warships has sent ripples across waters around Australia and New Zealand. Now, New Zealand officials suspect that the Chinese task force that has been conducting live fire without warning off Australia’s east coast could be backed by a nuclear-powered submarine.
The three Chinese Navy ships in the Tasman Sea have moved into Australia’s Exclusive Economic Zone. China’s live-fire without warning has forced commercial flights to change course. As the Chinese flotilla moves closer to the shores of New Zealand, the Royal New Zealand Navy crews monitor the warships.
The Navy intends to continue monitoring the ships in “close coordination with the Australian Defence Force” using the Anzac-class frigate the HMNZS Te Kaha and maritime sustainment vessel the HMNZS Aotearoa.
The Chinese fleet comprises the Jiangkai-class frigate Hengyang, the Renhai-class cruiser Zunyi, and the Fuchi-class replenishment vessel Weishanhu. ABC News quoted an anonymous military official in New Zealand saying that there was a “working assumption” that the Chinese task force comprising three warships away from the Chinese mainland would be supported by a submarine.
The submerged boat could be a nuclear-powered submarine, as it is the norm for the big powers to deploy their nuclear-powered submarines during lengthy and complex warship missions. This enables the countries to gather valuable intelligence on potential adversaries.
It is uncertain what course the Chinese fleet will chart in the coming days.
The unexpected nature of the drills and China’s lack of sufficient notice have heightened regional tensions. Both Australia and New Zealand emphasized that while China did not breach international law, the exercises were disconcerting due to the minimal warning provided.
The exercises have also sparked discussions about China’s growing influence and military presence in the region. Analysts suggest that the episode underscores the need for Australia and New Zealand to reassess their strategic and security policies in response to China’s actions.
It will be interesting to see how New Zealand will react if the Chinese fleet tailed by a nuclear submarine would indeed get closer to New Zealand’s shoreline. China is New Zealand’s largest trading partner. The two countries signed a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in 2008, making New Zealand the first developed country to enter into such an agreement with China. However, the country has the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987 in place.
Despite their close economic ties, New Zealand did sometimes send ships through the contested Taiwan Strait.
Interestingly, forty years ago, New Zealand denied a US nuclear-armed warship–USS Buchanan–entry into its waters based on legislation that prohibited nukes on its territory. The incident incensed Washington and set off a feud between the two allies that would go on for decades.
New Zealand’s Staunch Opposition To Nuclear Weapons
Since 1945, when nuclear bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, New Zealand has maintained a steadfast stance on nuclear weapons. New Zealand’s objection to nuclear weapons was formally expressed when the nation supported the exclusion of nuclear weapons from national arsenals in the first-ever United Nations General Assembly Resolution in 1946.
New Zealand’s resistance to nuclear weapons and nuclear tests intensified throughout the 1960s and 1970s when Western nations conducted nuclear tests in the Pacific.
Under Prime Minister David Lange’s leadership, the nation declared itself “nuclear-free” in 1984 following a protracted anti-nuclear movement. The government of New Zealand declared at that time that ships that were armed or powered by nuclear weapons would be prohibited.
The United States, which relied on nuclear weapons for deterrence and military projection against the former Soviet Union, was not pleased with this, though.
To gauge the government’s determination to forbid nuclear weapons, the US sent a warship to New Zealand. Due to the US’s stance of neither admitting nor denying the existence of nukes, certain nuclear-free nations had previously let US warships enter their borders. But New Zealand had no intention of giving in.
According to reports, the US asked the government of New Zealand to allow the visit of the guided-missile destroyer USS
, which was commissioned into the US Navy in 1962.
But New Zealand suspected that the destroyer could be carrying a nuclear depth bomb, which is primarily used for anti-submarine warfare. Therefore, on February 4, 1985, New Zealand refused to allow the USS Buchanan access after the US refused to verify that it was free of nuclear weapons.
According to an excerpt from New Zealand History, “The Americans assessed that it might slip under the political radar. ‘Near-uncertainty was not enough for us,’ Lange recalled. ‘Whatever the truth of its armaments, its arrival in New Zealand would be seen as a surrender by the government.’ He had hoped the Americans would offer to send a less ambiguous vessel, but it was the Buchanan or nothing.”
Within days, Washington severed its open military and intelligence contacts with New Zealand and weakened its diplomatic and political ties. Additionally, US Secretary of State George Schultz declared that the US would no longer honor its security guarantee to New Zealand, even if the architecture of the ANZUS pact remained intact.
The ANZUS Pact, or the US, Australia, and New Zealand Security Treaty, was an agreement signed in 1951 to protect the security of the Pacific.
The US response was guided by the fear that it could lose footing in the Indian Ocean if other allies like Australia took a similar stand. Unfazed by the US response, New Zealand passed the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act in 1987. The government of New Zealand stressed that it was not anti-American but just anti-nuclear.
