Marles raises ‘unsafe’ navy encounters in ‘frank’ talks with Chinese defence minister

Australia’s Defence Minister Richard Marles has used a face-to-face meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Admiral Dong Jun, to raise concerns directly about the dangerous tactics used by People’s Liberation Army in recent confrontations with the Australian Navy.

“It was a good meeting. We certainly set out our different positions, but it is positive that there is dialogue,” Marles told this masthead at the summit. Last month’s incident followed another encounter in November in which Australia said a Chinese warship had deployed sonar pulses while Australian naval divers were in the East China Sea in November. China has previously disputed Australia’s characterisation of both incidents and sought to blame Australia for the confrontations.

However, Marles’ remarks were toned down in parts from the draft excerpts circulated to journalists a day earlier. An explicit reference to regional order being impossible “without a leading Chinese role” and if China continued to ignore the “sovereign rights of its neighbours, or the obligations imposed by international law”, was pared back to a more generalised statement about this responsibility falling to “all countries – but especially big ones”.

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