While the world is distracted, China is making its move

Jennifer Parker | 7 August 2026

*Originally published in The Australian on 7 August 2026

Image: Chinese Coast Guard Vessel provided by Philippine's Coast Guard (https://x.com/jaytaryela/status/2000797031938580553?s=20)

The global pressures of 2026 have created no shortage of distractions. An increasingly interventionist US administration has added to flashpoints from the Middle East to Venezuela and Greenland, consuming the attention of the media, the public and Australia’s strategic decision-makers.

Yet while attention has shifted elsewhere, China has been expanding its coercive reach across the South China Sea and intensifying maritime pressure as part of a broader strategy of regional dominance. These are the waters immediately to Australia’s north. They carry around two-thirds of our trade and, as the range of modern military capabilities grows, increasingly provide a platform from which force can be projected towards Australia.

We cannot afford to be distracted. The South China Sea is where Australia’s attention must remain, and Australians need a clearer explanation of why what is happening there matters to our security.

China’s claim to around 90 per cent of the South China Sea is well established, and its claim to historic rights was found to have no legal basis under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea by the 2016 arbitral tribunal. Yet, despite marking the tribunal’s 10th anniversary this year, the facts at sea increasingly reflect Chinese military and government control of the South China Sea.

There are three key developments Australia should be deeply concerned about. China has resumed large-scale island-building at Antelope Reef, intensified coast guard and maritime militia operations in the South China Sea, and broadened its maritime campaign by using its coast guard east of Taiwan for the first time to query ships about their origins and destinations while asserting Chinese jurisdiction well outside China’s territorial sea.

Australia often speaks of the protection afforded by distance. While that has historically been true, the long-range-missile age has eroded much of this advantage. Such missiles can be launched from land, ships, aircraft and, as China’s recent submarine-launched ballistic missile test into the Pacific demonstrated, submarines.

Distance still complicates sustained operations against Australia. But China’s heavily militarised artificial islands in the Spratlys extend its ability to project power further south. Australia should worry about a future Chinese base in the Pacific, but it should not overlook the strategic significance of the bases China already has in the South China Sea.

In this context, China’s intensifying operations in the South China Sea and resumption of island-building, which it has historically followed with militarisation, should concern Australia.

This intensification of maritime operations is also reflected in key metrics. China’s coast guard and maritime militia, the latter comprising ostensibly civilian fishing vessels used to advance Beijing’s maritime claims, have intensified their activity across the region. Around Scarborough Shoal, a strategically located feature just 120 nautical miles (222km) from the Philippine island of Luzon, 933 Chinese coast guard ship-days had been recorded by mid-2026. That is already equivalent to the total for 2025, putting activity on track to double.

China’s maritime militia presence reached a record daily average of 241 vessels in 2025. This intensified activity has been accompanied by increasingly aggressive behaviour. In July, in the lead-up to and during the ASEAN foreign ministers meetings in Manila, a series of incidents occurred around Scarborough Shoal and Second Thomas Shoal. Chinese coast guard personnel used water cannon and, in one incident, struck a Philippine sailor with a wooden baton.

This intensification and expansion is not confined to the South China Sea. To the north, Chinese coast guard vessels operated east of Taiwan in June, requesting information from commercial ships about their origins and destinations while asserting Chinese jurisdiction. This raises serious concerns for freedom of navigation and has prompted fears that Beijing is testing elements of a future quarantine of Taiwan.

China has intensified this sustained campaign of coercion while international attention has been distracted by the Middle East.

The Australian government has, in part, responded. Foreign Minister Penny Wong used the recent ASEAN foreign ministers meetings to warn about China’s aggression and destabilising conduct, following yet more dangerous encounters at sea involving Chinese and Philippine vessels.

Australia has also increased its support for the Philippine Coast Guard, including through the provision this year of uncrewed aerial vehicles and uncrewed underwater vehicles, and maintained a regular naval presence in the region. But Australia’s limited number of ships constrains what these deployments can achieve. Sending a single ship can demonstrate presence, but it cannot provide a sustained response.

What the government has not done sufficiently is explain to the Australian public what is happening and what it means for Australia’s security. Yet the South China Sea provides one of the clearest examples of how dramatically our strategic circumstances have changed.

Australia will, of course, remain concerned about global conflicts and their economic consequences. But we cannot take our eyes off the rapidly changing environment in the South China Sea and Northeast Asia, or the direct implications for our security.

At a time when we are debating nuclear-powered submarines, defence spending and national resilience, Australians need a much clearer explanation of what is changing in our region and why it matters. Global crises will keep demanding our attention, but we cannot lose sight of what is happening in the waters immediately to our north.