The conservatives have really latched on this to do more saber rattling unfortunately in Australia. Reddit is an absolute write off trying to have any rational discussion about it too, the bots and shills are out in force. Just the suggestion that we don’t know the facts has people PMing you accusing you of being a Chinese shill and all sorts of toxic crap.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The Australian defence minister, Richard Marles, said on Saturday that several divers from the HMAS Toowoomba sustained injuries from sonar pulses emitted by a Chinese warship in international waters off Japan.
“We urge the Australian side to respect the facts, stop rude and irresponsible accusations toward China, engage in endeavors that are conducive in boosting mutual trust, and build a positive atmosphere for developing better bilateral relations and military-to-military ties,” Wu said according to the Global Times.
According to a transcript published on the website of China’s foreign affairs ministry, spokesperson Mao gave a similar response at a press conference.
The federal opposition is also demanding to know if Albanese raised the issue with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, when the pair met last week at the Apec summit in the US.
Albanese told Sky that Australia had made complaints “through all of the appropriate channels in all of the forums that are available”, but declined on several occasions to confirm whether he’d raised it with Xi directly, saying he wouldn’t talk about the content of private meetings.
A spokesperson told Guardian Australia: “Medical assessments conducted after the divers exited the water identified they had sustained minor injuries likely due to being subjected to the sonar pulses from the Chinese destroyer.”
The original article contains 597 words, the summary contains 211 words. Saved 65%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Let’s read the Global Times article.
Zhang Junshe, a Chinese naval expert, told the Global Times on Sunday that while Australia claimed the incident happened in Japan’s exclusive economic zone, it did not give the exact location.
If the incident took place in waters to the west of Japan, China and Japan have not carried out maritime delimitation in relevant waters, so Japan’s self-proclaimed exclusive economic zone could be well within waters administered by China, Zhang said.
Another Chinese military expert who requested anonymity told the Global Times on Sunday that Australia likely intentionally chose not to disclose the exact location because it has a guilty conscience.
“Did the incident take place near China’s Diaoyu Islands or the island of Taiwan? Or was it close to a PLA training exercise? If that is the case, it was obvious that the Australian warship provoked China in the first place,” the expert said.
Analysts pointed out that the Australian press release is one-sided as it failed to mention the Chinese input during the communications between the two countries’ ships.
Since the Australian side admitted that it had established communications with the Chinese side, it is very likely that the Chinese ship issued verbal warnings which the Australian ship had ignored, and the Chinese ship was forced to take the ensuing step which was to send a warning through sonar, the abovementioned anonymous expert said.
>Be Kangaroo navy
>Sail thousands of miles to antagonize China
>Get propeller tangled in fishing nets
>Chinese ship arrives, tells you to fuck off
>Can’t leave due to Aussie Competence
>Chinese ship tells you to fuck off with sonar ping
>Cry crocodile tears on Kangaroo TV
The fact that the Chinese navy intervened suggests that it’s likely a Chinese fishing net in contested EEZ.
I don’t know about you, but “Australian warship sails into Chinese waters and fucks up Chinese fisherman’s nets and livelihood” doesn’t sound great.
What is a sonar injury. Did they hear a loud noise?
Yes, that is how active sonar works. The ship emits a very loud noise and listens for reflections to map out the surroundings. Sonar pings can be very loud and can damage the ears of underwater life forms.
