ADF watches for Chinese spy ships monitoring Talisman Sabre exercises as PM heads to Shanghai

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Defence says it expects Chinese surveillance ships to travel to Australia to monitor major war games beginning tomorrow. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is separately flying out to China on Saturday for a six-day visit to the country, including a meeting with President Xi Jinping.

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00:00Defence is saying that this has gone from being, I suppose, a surprise feature of the

00:06talisman sabre games to an expected addition to the talisman sabre games. They're expecting

00:11this war ship, this surveillance ship, sorry, to arrive close to Australia at some point

00:16over the next few weeks. Just to recap on what talisman sabre actually is. They're essentially

00:20massive war games conducted off the coast of Queensland, the Northern Territory, and

00:24this year for the first time Papua New Guinea as well. It involves 19 different countries,

00:28but it's primarily Australia and the US organising these defence exercises. They involve about

00:3335,000 people. So they are absolutely massive in scale. China, of course, doesn't take a

00:40part, but has typically taken an interest in what's going on. At the last four editions of

00:45these war games, which take place every two years, a Chinese vessel has turned up at one

00:50point or another. So defence is saying it would be very unusual. Here's the Minister for Defence

00:54Industry. Pat Conroy speaking on this a bit earlier. When we conduct these exercises,

01:00we're always cognizant that they're being observed by people who want to collect information about

01:04how we work with our allies, how we communicate with our allies and partners, and you manage

01:09that accordingly in a sensitive way. That's what the Australian people would expect our Australian

01:14Defence Force to do, and we'll continue to do that. But again, I'll say that the Chinese

01:19military have observed these exercises since 2017, and it would be very unusual if they didn't do that

01:26this time. Okay, Tom, thanks for that.

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