China has in recent weeks staged military drills off Australia and Vietnam, sending pointed warnings near and far. Neither was a full-fledged exercise. But taken together, China’s recent shows of force, experts said, conveyed a message: the region must not ignore Beijing’s power and claims.
Three Chinese naval ships, including a cruiser with 112 missile tubes, showed up in the waters near Australia this month, only announcing plans to fire artillery for practice after the exercise had started. A few days later, on Monday, Chinese forces held live-fire drills in the Gulf of Tonkin, after Vietnam pressed its territorial claims in the gulf. Meanwhile, Chinese military aircraft buzz the skies near Taiwan almost daily.
While Washington is consumed with other matters, from Ukraine and the Middle East to budget cuts at the Pentagon, China keeps pressing. The exercises, while relatively brief, highlight that China’s military reach is likely to keep growing, regardless of whether the Trump administration ultimately tries to confront China or pull it into some kind of deal.
The series of drills aimed to show scale and scope, “showcasing China’s expanding naval capabilities and ability to project power across multiple theaters simultaneously,” said Nguyen Khac Giang, a visiting fellow with the Singapore-based ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute.
“The timing, with many in the Indo-Pacific region concerned about the U.S. commitments under President Donald Trump, is just perfect.”
The People’s Liberation Army had been growing more active long before Mr. Trump took office, and China held far larger exercises near Taiwan last year. In its own sometimes ominous way, experts said, China is trying to persuade governments in the Asia-Pacific region that, like it or not, their future lies in accommodating Beijing. And that includes its claims to democratically governed Taiwan and over much of the South China Sea, which is disputed by Vietnam and other countries.
Beijing’s message may gain more traction if American influence in the region ebbs.
“In purely military terms, these actions — the live firing training or three ships in seas near Australia — don’t have much significance,” said Su Tzu-yun, a research fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, an organization in Taipei that is funded by Taiwan’s ministry of defense. “But they can be seen as political signaling.”
Dan Blumenthal, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington who studies East Asian security, said that China’s displays of military power should not be dismissed as mere theater. The displays matter because they are backed by a real and growing ability by China’s leaders to raise the military stakes in disputes.
“The low-intensity war that China conducts daily only works if the threat to escalate conventionally is credible,” he said in an interview.
Asian governments have long turned to Washington to offset Chinese power in the region. But Mr. Trump has sent contradictory signals about whether he wants to contain or cooperate with Beijing — or, somehow, both. He has ideas for a big trade deal with China’s leader, Xi Jinping, and has sometimes spoken admiringly of Mr. Xi, but has also imposed additional tariffs and trade restrictions on China, with more set to come.
Mr. Trump’s defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has called for big cuts in American military spending across much of the globe so that the United States can concentrate on countering China in the Asia-Pacific. Yet it remains unclear whether and how that shift will happen. Mr. Trump has also complained that Asian countries spend too little on their defense.
The Trump administration has not commented on the recent Chinese drills, and the White House has yet to spell out a broader plan for the region.
Vietnam mostly fears being caught in a tidal wave of Trump tariffs after leaning closer to the United States on security in recent years. The country of 100 million people has sought to keep relations with the United States and China in balance. Vietnam did not respond strongly to the drills held in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, though they occurred a few days after Vietnam reinforced its rival territorial claims in the Gulf with what is known as a new baseline declaration. Experts said the drills were within China’s maritime boundary, and seemed to be smaller than previous efforts.
Like Vietnam, Australia has tried to maintain ties to both China, a major trade partner, and the United States, its primary ally for defense. After a thaw in relations with Beijing, which had shunned and punished Australia over political and diplomatic disputes, the arrival of three Chinese navy vessels struck much of Australia as a setback, if not outright intimidation.
The warships were cruising in the Tasman Sea, without having previously declared the mission — according to Australian officials — as the top U.S. commander for the region, Adm. Samuel J. Paparo, finished a three-day trip to Australia. Earlier this month, Admiral Paparo warned that American forces were ill-prepared for China’s military buildup in the Asia-Pacific.
China’s ambassador to Australia, Xiao Qian, said the ships did not pose a threat.
“As a major power in this region, as a country that has so many things to look after, it is normal for China to send their vessels to different parts of the region to conduct various kinds of activities,” Ambassador Xiao said, in an interview with Australia’s main public broadcaster.
The warships were outside Australia’s territorial waters, but they traveled within about 150 nautical miles of Sydney. Anxiety there grew after the Chinese naval ships said last week that they were holding live fire exercises, and 49 commercial planes were forced to suddenly divert their routes to avoid the area. A New Zealand frigate said it had spotted firing from one of the Chinese warships on Saturday.
New Zealand’s defense minister, Judith Collins, said the drills were the “most significant” that region has seen from China. Australian officials said Beijing did not provide proper notice.
The most acute uncertainties about the role of the United States in Asia are perhaps felt by Taiwan, which has for decades relied on Washington for military and political support and is regularly tested by Chinese military forces. In addition to the Chinese aircraft that flew near Taiwan this week, Taiwan’s defense ministry said on Wednesday that Chinese ships had warned that they planned to hold live fire training to the south of the island. But the ships ultimately did not fire any weapons there, two Taiwanese security officials said, on condition of anonymity.
Mr. Trump’s recent actions, including turning against embattled Ukraine, have magnified anxieties among Taiwanese policymakers. Mr. Trump has also demanded that Taiwan dramatically increase its military spending, and this week he refused to say whether the United States would step in if China launched a war against Taiwan.
“I never comment on that. I don’t comment on any — because I don’t want to ever put myself in that position,” Mr. Trump said in answer to a reporter’s question about stopping China from using force to take Taiwan. “And if I said it, I certainly wouldn’t be saying it to you.”
Mr. Trump’s unwillingness to comment on the defense of Taiwan echoed the calculated ambiguity of previous decades of U.S. policy, when administrations also avoided clearly committing to entering war over Taiwan. President Biden, however, had repeatedly said that Washington would intervene.
Mr. Trump’s administration includes longtime supporters of Taiwan, such as the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, but Mr. Trump may undercut their influence with his demands toward Taiwan and attention on bargaining with China’s leader, Mr. Xi.
After his comment on Taiwan, Mr. Trump said: “But I can tell you what, I have a great relationship with President Xi. I’ve had a great relationship with him. We want them to come in and invest.”
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