[THEME MUSIC IN]

RUBY:

From Schwartz Media, I'm Ruby Jones, this is 7am.

Every two years the Australian and US defence forces engage in a massive military exercise called Talisman Sabre.

It's about strategising for potential conflict - and this year, many observers say the focus has been on China.

The wargames haven’t gone unnoticed - in fact, the Chinese navy sent two spy ships to monitor the situation.

Today, contributor to The Saturday Paper Brian Toohey, on the danger of these military manoeuvres and the espionage arms race taking place in our region.

It’s Monday, the 2nd of August.

[THEME MUSIC OUT]

Brian, for the past few weeks, one of Australia's largest war gaming exercises has been going on in Queensland. Can you tell me about it? Who's involved and what are they doing exactly?

BRIAN:

Well, this exercise, which is called Talisman Sabre. and it's been held previously every two years with the Americans and other countries, seven countries are taking place this time.

Archival tape -- American military member:

“We’re currently in Shoalwater training area in Queensland, Australia, conducting a bilateral joint-exercise between the United States Army and the Australian Defence Force…”

BRIAN:

There's a lot of troops here. The seventeen thousand military people.

Archival tape -- American military member:

“Being here means that we are able to send a message that we are supporting and sustaining a green Indo-pacific region with our allies the Australian defence force…”

BRIAN:

And what they've been doing is various exercises actually, the big one is to test the amphibious forces.

Archival tape -- Australian military member:

“The training areas down in Shoalwater Bay will be supporting the amphibious component of the exercise, so that’ll see some lodgement activity, some of the big ships putting some of our capabilities ashore…”

BRIAN:

And then there's the army manoeuvres - that’s mainly with the American Marines - and there’s planes and fighter planes for, you know, air combat, and lots of other sorts of planes.

Archival tape -- Australian military member:

“For us, exercise Talisman Sabre 2021 for Townsville air traffic control will provide airbase air traffic services for the foreign military aircraft and Australian aircraft…”

BRIAN:

But the big part of what's going on is to practise for a joint military operation against China. And that's that's probably become a more important part of these exercises than when they first started in 2005

RUBY:

Right - so the purpose is to practice for a war against china... tell me more about that? what exactly goes on?

BRIAN:

Yes, they I mean, obviously, there's other things happening, but it's all really all built around the idea of preparing for a war with China without saying it is not the right thing. There is what the US said is that the spokesman for the US said that the exercises were to integrate with the Australian, Canadian, Japanese and Korean Navies in to try and build their cooperation as a combined effort. But during the exercises, for a long while there’s been one Chinese spy ship observing what's happening from international waters.

Archival tape -- reporter:

“A second Chinese surveillance ship is believed to have been dispatched to monitor the Australian Defence Force's largest ever military operation…”

BRIAN:

This year they brought down two spy ships.

So they're trying to electronically snoop on what's happening.

Archival tape -- reporter:

“Well Beijing has dispatched a second high tech spy ship to Queensland as large scale military exercises involving Australia and US Forces ramp up…”

RUBY:

Right, and so what kind of intelligence are these Chinese spy ships hoping to get, Brian?

BRIAN:

I spoke to Clinton Fernandes, who's a professor at the Australian Defence Force Academy,

Archival tape -- Clinton Fernandes:

“Dealing with the rise of China is the most important strategic question and foreign policy question confronting Australia for the whole of this decade.”

BRIAN:

and he explained what the spy ships would like to do - he didn't say they were able to do it, but they would like to try and work out which is the actual command ship of all the ships, and so they would be ready to sink that first in a battle.

Archival tape -- Clinton Fernandes:

“in a Navy does the same thing. There are aircraft carriers or frigates. There are destroyers. There are vessels whose sole role is to hunt for incoming aircraft from the enemy side. And so China is trying to put up a develop an order of battle of how the coalition would operate”

BRIAN:

And the other thing is they'd like to be able to detect radar emissions and two things they could do there:they can just jam them if they want to or they can destroy the actual radar antennas and so forth.

RUBY:

OK, so just to be clear, Brian, we've got Australia undertaking these joint military exercises with the US as well as these other countries, and they're simulating a potential war that would be with China. And we've got Chinese ships being sent to spy on that. That does sound quite tense.

BRIAN:

Look, they probably just want to show their flag, so to speak.

Archival tape -- Australian military member:

“Well we’ve seen it before in Talisman Sabre, both in 2019 and 2017. We expected the deployment of the vessel, we’re surprised that there are two vessels…”

BRIAN:

One of the things is - and the Defence Department put out a press release on this at the beginning - was saying, well, they're entitled to be there under international law provided by stay in international waters.

Archival tape -- Australian military member:

“The Chinese have made a decision to have a greater presence and we would expect them to operate and conduct themselves within the rules of international law.”

BRIAN:

Well, we've been far more provocative in the past. In 1992 an Australian submarine entered Shanghai Harbour, actually went into Shanghai harbour where it got tangled up in fishermen's nets, had to surface and try and get a cut a way through the nets with Chinese sailors watching them.

Very, very dangerous and certainly far more provocative than anything than having a ship just sitting out here, you know, out in clear view.

RUBY:

So essentially - what you’re saying is that spy ships are a common, but not terribly effective tool used by nation states including Australia, but they’re not terribly effective. So if these ships aren’t the kind of frontline of surveillance activity, what is?

BRIAN:

So most major countries have things like spy ships or more important things like doing this with drones and satellites and so forth.

But the Chinese - it's a strange thing, given how sophisticated they are in many ways - don't have these big satellites.

Here, the main satellites, which are at Pine Gap - linked to Pine Gap, I should say, they’re thirty six thousand kilometres into space - they have enormous capability to cover the whole of China and the surroundings of China for intercepting billions and billions of messages and other data a day.

Well, at least what the Chinese can do for dead.

RUBY:

We’ll be back in a moment.

[ADVERTISEMENT]

RUBY:

Brian, we’re talking about the spying technology employed by nation states. You’ve mentioned Pine Gap, and the satellites linked to it. Can you tell me a bit more about Pine Gap?

BRIAN:

Yes. It's outside Alice Springs. It was set up by the Americans back in around about 1970. Right. And There's several satellites linked to Pine Gap. One big thing they do is intercepting all sorts of electronic messages, phone calls, text and military communications and so on.

And the other thing that uses separate satellites actually picks up heat sources: heat sources like, say, launches of missiles, the heat from planes, jet fighters and so forth. Those things are then used instantly and that contributes a huge amount of intelligence, that data goes into the whole American warfighting capabilities.

Archival tape -- American military member:

“Well it’s a very high tech facility, when you go into operations you go into a dark room you see operators there looking at their monitors, they wear headsets, they’re basically monitoring, watching and listening for anything that might be intelligence that would be desired by the United States and Australia…”

BRIAN:

It is enormously important because it provides them with real time targeting data, you know, to attack. And for example, if a radar turns on like an attack, it in real time, not not Pine Gap. It sends the signals to the American military in place to do that or else for that matter, but that the pine gap is far more important to the Americans than whether we send a couple of ships or, you know, fighter planes or whatever to work to coordinate with them in a war with China. They wouldn't care if they didn't turn up, but they would care immensely if Pine Gap was shut down.

RUBY:

Mm, and Brian, what is happening at Pine Gap right now?

Well, it’s expanding the fastest it’s ever done. Being pointed out by Peter Cronau, who's writing a book on Pine Gap.

He's showing that he's discovered that they've got four new antennas. They're already built in the last year. They're got another one, really big one under construction. And that would mean five a little bit over a year.

We're not claiming to know exactly what sort they are, but they obviously very important to be going in at Pine Gap in such a hurry that it suggests that the Americans want to have a lot more information on China.

RUBY:

Right - so the US is ramping up efforts to gather intelligence on China. On top of that we have these war games in Queensland - strategising for conflict with China. And China’s sending its own spy ships to check on that. So how worrying is all of this? Is it an escalation?

BRIAN:

I think it's quite dangerous. I mean, not necessarily that either side wants to start a war, but wars can start by accident when you have ships and planes from one side and the other getting in very close proximity, which you can do in terms of putting a lot of ships through the South China Sea to try and in some ways confront the Chinese ships and likewise visa versa with the Chinese ships. There really needs to be some sort of effort to cool everything down.

And I I think there's problems on both sides. The Chinese are incredibly nationalistic about this. And I also think they could make an awful mistake if they believed everything that was said in the West about how powerful they are.

I...this is just my view. I think that the Americans have at one that had a lot more practise of being in wars, and I think at least an offshore battle would probably go to the Americans advantage. A lot of people disagree with that, because despite what we're saying about the spy ships not mattering very much, they have put a big effort into being able to defend the approaches to their country, given that the world has accepted Taiwan's southern part of China. They will try to stop any attempt to build up or build up more forces from America. What about right in the vicinity of Taiwan.

And I think because of the impact, they are a lot stronger now, except I haven't had any practise at being in a war. The last major war was in 1950 in the Korean War. And whereas the Americans have been in numerous wars, very important ones, some of them.

RUBY:

And what about us here in Australia, though, Brian, do you think that we are adequately prepared or even aware enough of what it would mean to be drawn into this?

BRIAN:

I think the Australians are not aware of just how horrific a war would be between China and the United States and with us being involved in some way. there would be heavy losses. And just and as I said, it's very hard to work out to be the ultimate winner.

It is very, very dangerous. And there's not enough effort being put into having serious conferences that would try to bring an end to this. And likewise, there's no arms control treaties anymore, no new ones, so there's nothing to try and reduce the cyber warfare stuff or to reduce things like the electronic spying from satellites and so forth.

Wars have a sort of momentum or the momentum of their own or the build up to wars have a momentum of their own. It's very hard to stop, you know, and I hope that calmness at the very top levels of America and in China would prevail. It's not automatic.

RUBY:

Brian, thank you so much for your time.

BRIAN:

Thanks.

[ADVERTISEMENT]

RUBY:

Also in the news today, Queensland recorded nine new Covid-19 cases in the community yesterday - the highest number for the state in almost a year. 11 Queensland local government areas are currently in a snap three-day lockdown.

The outbreak in NSW is continuing to grow - with 239 new cases on Sunday.

Meanwhile - Victoria recorded four new local cases, all linked to current outbreaks and all in isolation while infectious.

I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am, see you tomorrow.