By Frank Yuan
As a non-claimant in the South China Sea, Australia stands out among Washington’s allies as one of the most active participants in military activities in the area. This is a bipartisan policy enjoying significant public support; it has also been a major irritant in Canberra’s relations with Beijing, its largest trading partner. Australia maintains certain limits to its operations in the South China Sea, though some important questions about the attendant risks remain.
Australia has conducted patrols in the South China Sea since the Cold War, particularly overflights of aircraft with anti-submarine capabilities (initially responding to Soviet activities). Since the South China Sea dispute heated up in the early 2010s, Australia increased its military activities there alongside the U.S. and its other allies, especially through joint exercises. Recently, however, Australia appears to be bearing growing military risks.
Recent Incidents
In February 2025, the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) had a close encounter near the Paracel Islands. One of its surveillance aircraft was allegedly harassed by a Chinese fighter jet, which deployed flares in its close proximity, posing serious risks to the Australian aircraft’s engines. Beijing, for the first time, accused Australia of violating its airspace in the South China Sea.
Previously, the Chinese air force had been reported to have used flares against Canadian, Philippine and Australian aircraft operating in the South China Sea. But Beijing’s accusation of Australian intrusion was new – it would mean that the RAAF aircraft had ventured into the 12-nautical-mile zone around the reefs or islands claimed by Beijing. A second incident involving the same types of aircraft happened in October 2025, again in the Paracels, with Beijing similarly accusing the RAAF of airspace violation.
Days after the first incident at the Paracels, a three-ship formation of the Chinese navy began a circumnavigation of Australia, entering Australia’s exclusive economic zone and conducting live fire exercise. Beijing made no explicit linkage between the two episodes, but the message was clear: China could begin to raise the stakes if Australia continued its visits or stepped up further.
Just Short of FONOP
While there has been no such announcement from Canberra, initiating overflights in China’s claimed airspace would indeed align Australian policy closer to that of the U.S.
Since 2015, the U.S. military has periodically conducted Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOP) within China’s declared territorial waters and airspace in the South China Sea, challenging Beijing’s territorial claims, which Washington and its allies considered excessive.
When the Obama administration began conducting FONOPs in the South China Sea in late 2015, Canberra voiced its support but refrained from joining such operations. Australia conducts “freedom of navigation missions” or “domain awareness operations”, which stop just short of entering the zones claimed by China as territorial sea or sovereign airspace. This approach has continued in the wake of the 2016 ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration. Soon before the ruling, the opposition Labor Party called on the center-right government to conduct U.S.-style FONOPs, only to equivocate later in the year.
Washington’s other allies rarely replicate its operations, nor have their operations led to confrontations with China as close or direct. The UK conducted a US-style FONOP through China’s claimed territorial waters in the Paracels in 2018, and France and Germany conducted sail-throughs in the South China Sea on separate occasions in 2021; in neither case was there any indication that their ships entered the 12-nautical-mile zone.
Even in the recent instance of a Dutch frigate-borne helicopter entering China’s claimed airspace in the Paracels, the Chinese military was only reported to have used electronic jamming rather than flares when expelling it.
Political Consensus in Australia
Even in the period of significant Sino-Australian tensions between 2018 and 2022, Canberra did not escalate its operations in the South China Sea. Since taking office in 2022, the Labor government has not announced any fundamental policy changes on China and touted an agenda of stabilizing the relationship, dialing down the rhetoric on China while largely retaining the previous government’s policy substance.
If Canberra appears to have a somewhat higher risk tolerance in the South China Sea, it is buttressed by domestic consensus. From 2021 to 2024, opinion surveys showed a majority of Australians considering China “more of a military threat” than an economic partner (only barely reversing in the most recent 2025 poll); since 2023, half of the public thought military conflict with China a “serious possibility” within three years. Surveys from 2016-17 (last time this question was polled) also showed around 70% of the public supporting Australia conducting FONOP in the South China Sea, though the questionnaires did not specify the precise nature of these operations.
On the other hand, the Australian public does not seem to consider the South China Sea an area of a vital national interest. About 60% of Australians polled in 2019 and 2022 were against the use of force to “conduct freedom of navigation naval operations in the South China Sea and other disputed areas claimed by China”. The Liberal-National Coalition has not pushed for a step-up in Australian FONOP either.
The government therefore faces little domestic political impetus to change its policy on the South China Sea and will likely continue routine operations just outside of the 12-nautical-mile zone. This, however, does not account for external factors which could compel Canberra to rethink its engagement.
Frank Yuan (fangchengfrank.yuan@uts.edu.au) holds a PhD from the University of Sydney. He is currently an adjunct fellow at the Australia-China Relations Institute at the University of Technology Sydney. He can be found on Twitter/X as @Yuan_Frank0.
