Chinese warship being tracked as it heads towards US-Australia war games

About 25,000 Australia and US military personnel, battleships and aircraft are participating in war games over the next month

Australian military says the Chinese surveillance vessel is probably trying to get a first-hand look at the exercises

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Three Chinese warships docked at the Garden Island naval base in Sydney. -Photo: AFP

Published: 11:38am, 8 Jul 2019Updated: 9:23pm, 8 Jul 2019

Australian defence officials said on Monday they were tracking a Chinese surveillance ship that is expected to position itself just outside its territorial waters to monitor military exercises between Australia and the United States.

Around 25,000 Australian and US military personnel on board battleships equipped with strike jets will over the next month participate in biannual Talisman Sabre war games.

Lieutenant General Greg Bilton, chief of joint operations at the Australian Defence Force, said the Chinese surveillance vessel was probably headed to Australia’s northeast coast to get a first-hand look at the military exercises.

“We’re tracking it. We don’t know yet its destination but we are assuming that it will come down to the east coast of Queensland and we will take appropriate measures,” Bilton told reporters in Brisbane, the state capital of Queensland.

Relations between the United States and China have soured in recent months amid a trade war and perceived Chinese assertiveness in the Pacific, encapsulated by Beijing’s artificial island building in the disputed South China Sea.