https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/a...-as-china-flexes-muscles-20200422-p54m1q.html Australian, US vessels in South China Sea as China flexes muscles Anthony Galloway April 22, 2020 — 11.03am Canberra: An Australian warship has been conducting exercises in the South China Sea with US ships, as tensions heighten in the disputed waterway while much of the world remains in lockdown because of coronavirus. Over the past few days the Australian ship HMAS Parramatta has been undertaking exercises with US ships America, Barry and Bunker Hill as they passed through the waters. Rising tensions: US Navy ships pass through the South China Sea. The move comes as Chinese ships have also been passing through the disputed waters, according to Defence experts. A Defence spokeswoman said Parramatta has been undertaking an "extended deployment" throughout south and southeast Asia for the past two months to "help strengthen the stability and security of the region". "During the passage exercises, the ships honed interoperability between Australian and US navies, including replenishment-at-sea, aviation operations, maritime manoeuvres and communications drills," the Defence spokeswoman said. "Australia has maintained a robust program of international engagement with countries in and around the South China Sea for decades." On board HMAS Parramatta. Credit:Louie Douvis The USS America, an amphibious assault ship, and the USS Bunker Hill, a guided missile cruiser, entered contested waters off Malaysia. At the same time, a Chinese government ship in the area has for days been tailing a Malaysian state oil company ship carrying out exploratory drilling. US Navy ships passing through the South China Sea where China is flexing its muscle during the pandemic. Despite working to control a pandemic that spread from China earlier this year, Beijing has not reduced its activities in the South China Sea, a strategic waterway through which one-third of global shipping flows. Instead, the Chinese government's years-long pattern of assertiveness has only intensified, military analysts said. "It's a quite deliberate Chinese strategy to try to maximise what they perceive as being a moment of distraction and the reduced capability of the United States to pressure neighbours," said Peter Jennings, executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. Since January, when the coronavirus epidemic began to surge, the Chinese government and coast guard ships, along with maritime militias, have been plying contested waters in the South China Sea, tangling with regional maritime enforcement agencies and harassing fishermen. Earlier this month, the Vietnamese accused a Chinese patrol ship of ramming and sinking a Vietnamese fishing boat. Last month, China opened two new research stations on artificial reefs it has built on maritime turf claimed by the Philippines and others. The reefs are also equipped with defence silos and military-grade runways. Over the weekend, the Chinese government announced that it had formally established two new districts in the South China Sea that include dozens of contested islets and reefs. Many are submerged bits of atoll that do not confer territorial rights, according to international law. "It seems that even as China was fighting a disease outbreak, it was also thinking in terms of its long-term strategic goals," said Alexander Vuving, a professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Centre for Security Studies in Honolulu. "The Chinese want to create a new normal in the South China Sea, where they are in charge, and to do that they've become more and more aggressive." After the sinking of the Vietnamese boat, the State Department urged China in a statement "to remain focused on supporting international efforts to combat the global pandemic, and to stop exploiting the distraction or vulnerability of other states to expand its unlawful claims in the South China Sea." The Chinese government has made vast claims to the South China Sea that conflict with demarcations made by five other governments. An international tribunal has dismissed most of China's claims to the waterway, but Beijing does not recognise the ruling and has instead built naval bases on reefs it now controls. While the United States has no territorial claims in the South China Sea, the US Navy says it has kept the peace in these waters for decades. US military officials have chastised China for its increased militarisation of the waterway. "Through our continued operational presence in the South China Sea, we are working with our allies and partners to promote freedom of navigation and overflight, and the international principles that underpin security and prosperity for the Indo-Pacific," said Lieutenant Commander Nicole Schwegman, a spokeswoman for the US Indo-Pacific Command. "The US supports the efforts of our allies and partners to determine their own economic interests." The Chinese government has countered that the United States is the country destabilising the region. The appearance of the America and the Bunker Hill may do little to dispel that narrative. And regional governments have worried that the United States has a habit of briefly showing up in hot spots only to depart, leaving them to contend with an increasingly muscular Beijing. "What is the intention of the US here?" said Ian Storey, a South China Sea expert at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, a think-tank in Singapore. "Is it just to say, 'We're here?' Or are they going to shadow the Chinese survey ship to try to stop it from operating?" The Indo-Pacific Command did not specify the exact location of the two US warships, citing operational restrictions, but it confirmed that the warships were in the South China Sea. On Tuesday, the Navy posted pictures of the warships on Twitter, accompanied by a third vessel, a destroyer called the USS Barry, saying that the expeditionary strike group was operating "in support of security and stability in the Indo-Pacific region." The area where the American warships have been sailing is around 200 nautical miles off the coast of Malaysia, defence experts said. Malaysia, China and Vietnam all claim rights to the natural resources in this part of the contested waterway. Last week, a Chinese government survey ship began shadowing the West Capella, a drill ship conducting exploration activities off the Malaysian coast and operated by Petronas, the Malaysian state oil company. The Chinese survey ship, called the Haiyang Dizhi 8, had previously tracked similar oil operations off Vietnam. An Australian frigate, the HMAS Parramatta, is accompanying the American naval ships, as part of a previously planned operation, according to defence experts. ASPI's Jennings said that the Parramatta's deployment would have been arranged at least a year ago. At that time, "it probably didn't know it was sailing into a heightened military environment," Jennings said. "It's been made that way really since March, with the greater pattern of offensive operations that China is engaging in all the way from Japan to the South China Sea." Defence experts who have reviewed information about military movements in the area but are not authorised to share them publicly, said that a Chinese warship has been operating off the coast of Malaysia. The destroyer is called the Wuhan, named after the city where the coronavirus outbreak began. At a time when China has been sending doctors and personal protective equipment to Malaysia to combat the viral epidemic there, the Malaysian government has not publicly protested the Chinese survey ship's activities or its security cordon of armed Chinese coast guard vessels. The prolonged presence of Chinese maritime militia and coast guard ships in another oil-rich area off Malaysia has not prompted an official protest either. Beijing has been dispatching medical supplies and expertise across the region and has boasted in a military publication that not a single member of the Chinese People's Liberation Army has come down with the coronavirus, an eyebrow-raising contention given the epidemic's rapid spread.
"Defence experts who have reviewed information about military movements in the area but are not authorised to share them publicly, said that a Chinese warship has been operating off the coast of Malaysia. The destroyer is called the Wuhan, named after the city where the coronavirus outbreak began." You know what would look good next to that Chinese destroyer? Answer: A torpedo from an American sub, or from the Royal Australian Navy Submarine Service to keep it multicultural.
From WSJ: WASHINGTON—The State Department has assessed that Russia, China and Iran are mounting increasingly intense and coordinated disinformation campaigns against the U.S. relating to the [outbreak of the new coronavirus](https://archive.is/o/OOPQa/https://...latest-updates/coronavirus?mod=article_inline), according to an internal report. All three countries are using state-controlled media, social media and government agencies and officials to disseminate information to domestic audiences and global audiences alike that denigrates the U.S. and spreads false accounts, the State Department report says. The messages then are picked up and amplified by each, repeating the other’s claims, creating an echo across traditional and social media. The pattern allows officials and official sources to give credibility to information spread by unofficial sources, the report said. One of the aims behind the accelerating effort has been to distract domestic audiences from poor public-health responses at home, according to the report, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Among the unproven claims circulating in Russian and Chinese information channels is that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation created the new coronavirus with pharmaceutical companies to make money from treatment. The claim has been linked to a report on a Russian state-owned TV network. The Gates Foundation didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Mark Suzman, CEO of the foundation, said earlier this month that falsehoods may spread faster than the disease and cause real harm. Another example was the repeated claim by Russian and Iranian state information sources that the virus is a U.S. bioweapon. Last month, Chinese officials alleged the [virus was created by the U.S. military](https://archive.is/o/OOPQa/https://...viruss-origins-11585232018?mod=article_inline). “It might be [U.S. army who brought the epidemic](https://archive.is/o/OOPQa/https://...irus-narrative-11586516402?mod=article_inline) to Wuhan. Be transparent!” China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on Twitter. The U.S. military has described that charge as [“false & absurd.”]() Questions about how the health crisis originated are one part of a broader diplomatic and public-relations battle between the U.S. and China over the pandemic. U.S. intelligence agencies are assessing whether the [virus escaped from a Chinese biological laboratory](https://archive.is/o/OOPQa/https://...of-coronavirus-11587077170?mod=article_inline) in Wuhan, according to senior Trump administration officials. The State Department report was produced by the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, which coordinates the government’s effort to identify and counter disinformation by foreign adversaries. “The GEC assesses that their current convergence on Covid-19 disinformation has accelerated as the pandemic increasingly impacts the world,” the report said. Lea Gabrielle, the GEC’s special envoy, said much of the cooperation appeared to be opportunistic, but there was evidence of coordinated action between the three U.S. adversaries as well. “Russia, China and Iran do have media cooperation agreements and I think this is important because disinformation narratives are known to originate from official state news sources,” she said. A Chinese embassy official in Washington didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York said the U.S. was to blame for any propaganda related to the outbreak. “For sure, any disinformation or propaganda on the coronavirus pandemic is emanating from the U.S. administration, not Iran,” the official said in an email to the Journal. “U.S. media \[is full of\] stories of lies and disinformation spread by the administration.” Ms. Gabrielle said that the public has a right to truthful and factual information, and that the U.S. is seeking to expose false narratives and help audiences recognize disinformation. A Russian embassy spokesman didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Russia has denied engaging in disinformation campaigns. U.S. intelligence officials are also examining whether foreign actors may be trying to seed or amplify anti-lockdown protests in the U.S. The State Department report didn’t address whether the propaganda was feeding into anti-shutdown protests. Ms. Gabrielle declined to comment on the role of disinformation in U.S. domestic affairs but said that the propaganda appeared to target audiences globally and appeared in a variety of languages, including, for example, French, German and Italian. All social media and messaging platforms appeared to be vulnerable to exploitation, Ms. Gabrielle said. Earlier this week, a watchdog group warned that posts on [Facebook are promoting conspiracy theories](https://archive.is/o/OOPQa/https://...-watchdog-says-11587436159?mod=article_inline) and bogus Covid-19 cures, defying efforts by the social-media giant to crack down on misinformation. Ms. Gabrielle said the false claim that the virus was a U.S. bioweapon reflected a broad effort to undermine democratic society as well as control public opinion at home. “All of those together, I think, are very concerning trends,” she said. The State Department’s GEC works closely with other U.S. government agencies including the intelligence community. The report was shared with U.S. government partners, as well as foreign allies. The U.S. and British governments warned earlier this month that hacking groups tied to foreign actors are increasingly taking advantage of the [pandemic to target individuals](https://archive.is/o/OOPQa/https://...tish-officials-11586377708?mod=article_inline) and organizations. The joint cyber alert didn’t name specific countries. The World Health Organization is among the organizations that have been hit by a [ramp-up in hacking attempts](https://archive.is/o/OOPQa/https://...of-coronavirus-11585056466?mod=article_inline) against its systems, the agency’s information security chief said last month. *—Dustin Volz contributed to this article.*