<p></p>

Through a stretch of water where Australian attention is usually fixated on asylum-seeker boats, a flotilla of very different ocean vessels passed largely unremarked early this month.

Three Chinese warships on a military exercise that included combat simulations sailed through the Sunda Strait, turned east, passed by Christmas Island before skirting the southern edge of Java and turning north again. Never before has a Chinese naval drill come so close to Australia.

Unlike the asylum-seeker boats, the Chinese ships took Australian officials by surprise. China had not announced the route of the exercise, nor informed Canberra. Rather, Australian defence officials were reportedly alerted by their American counterparts. There was sufficient consternation that Defence ordered a P-3 Orion surveillance plane north to keep an eye on the warships.

Illustration: John Spooner.

Illustration: John Spooner.

Officially, Australia is relaxed about the exercise, saying that China remained lawfully in international waters and was under no obligation to inform Canberra of its plans. But the move has got the attention of Canberra's Defence officials. Military planners and strategic analysts have long known that China's naval ambitions were growing, with far-reaching strategic consequences for our region. This month's exercise took the theory a good step closer to reality, bringing China's bold ambitions virtually to Australia's doorstep. In doing so, it has crystallised the challenge facing our military planners in preparing for a very different world.

''It is a bit of a wake-up call to our defence planners to contemplate that in the future they're going to have to expect the Chinese to be able to operate in considerable force in the vicinity of our ocean territories,'' says Rory Medcalf, director of the Lowy Institute's international security program. ''That is a new thing.''

China's military budget is expected to be as much as $200 billion this year. That still pales against the US, which spent roughly $700 billion last year. The difference is that Beijing's budget is growing at 10 per cent a year, while Washington, beset by fiscal problems, is cutting spending.

Li Mingjiang of Singapore's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies estimates China is ''about halfway'' through the transition of taking its navy from a coastal defence force to a proper ''blue water'' navy, capable of projecting power far from home.

It is widely accepted that the course of the 21st century turns on whether the established superpower, the US, and the rising great power, China, learn to live with each other. How that plays out is being complicated by China's disputes with its neighbours over territory in the South China Sea and East China Sea - with Beijing adopting some bellicose postures lately, prompting the conservative government in Japan to muscle up in return.

Australia is both a close ally of the US - Darwin has hosted its marines since 2012 - and a geographically strategic land mass, sitting between the Pacific and Indian oceans. As such, we are a significant player.

As a giant economy and a great power, China asserts its right to expand its military. Neither the US nor Australia denies this right, arguing only that the expansion should be transparent and that China should signal its intention to be a constructive global player in a rules-based order, rather than a disruptive player that wants to bully its neighbours.

Asked about the significance of the Chinese navy exercises on Friday, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop told the ABC that China's growing power in the region and around the globe needed to be acknowledged.

''The United States has long been the single greatest power in the Pacific, in Asia, in fact globally,'' she said. ''But we recognise that there are other countries that are emerging as stronger economies, other countries are building up their militaries. Japan is also redefining its defence stance.

''So we are in a very different world. It's a changing landscape and our foreign policy must be flexible enough and nimble enough to recognise that changing landscape.''

Strategic experts in Australia say there was nothing inherently hostile in China's recent naval exercise. Indeed, an expanding naval power will inevitably cross thresholds - in this case, the Indonesian archipelago. But most analysts also see a clear message in the manoeuvre. It is part of a pattern the People's Liberation Army has lately established, Medcalf says.

Last June, in the face of tensions with Tokyo, Chinese warships sailed all the away around Japan, to show they could go where they liked.

In October, a large contingent of Chinese ships converged in the western Pacific to show they could breach the so-called ''first island chain'' that has traditionally formed a notional maritime boundary. In December, China's first aircraft carrier held exercises in the South China Sea. One of its escort ships nearly collided with an American destroyer in an incident that Medcalf says ''could have turned nasty''.

''All of this may not quite add up to gunboat diplomacy of the coercive kind, but it does show a pattern of China testing its capabilities and wanting to show it can go where it wants when it wants.''

Hugh White, a former senior Defence official and veteran analyst now at the Australian National University, puts it this way: ''They are saying, 'We are not that constrained'. It's a bit like walking down the street with a gun.''

The view from the Chinese strategic establishment is that the region should get used to it.

''Expect more of China's naval exercises around [Australia], per international law,'' says Shen Dingli, professor of international relations at Fudan University in Shanghai.

There are plenty of reasons why China wants to grow militarily, some of them understandable or benign, others less so. It shows no real expansionist tendencies - all of its claims are to territories it argues were its own to begin with.

Medcalf says China's growing interests far from home give it one good reason for extending its naval power, notably into the Indian Ocean. There are more than 1 million Chinese nationals living in Africa and substantial Chinese economic interests in the Middle East. China depends heavily on oil imports from the Persian Gulf that are transported through the Indian Ocean and on through the busy Malacca Strait which ends at Singapore.

He adds that the Lombok Strait, through which the three Chinese warships passed on their recent exercise above Australia, is a possible emergency alternative route to the Malacca Strait, which could be blockaded in the event of a war in Asia. If the territorial disputes in the East China Sea or South China Sea did spark a war, China's energy supplies could be better safeguarded.

The less palatable side is its growing ability to push others around. The goal of good strategy is not conflict but coercion - getting what you want without having to fight. Hugh White has long pointed out that China doesn't have to outclass the US Navy in Asia - merely to threaten it in order to dissuade it from intervening on behalf of its friends Japan or Taiwan. It now has that power.

''Fifteen years ago, China had very little capacity to find and sink American aircraft carriers. Today that capacity is formidable and growing … That affects the way America responds to things like the Senkakus [territorial dispute with Japan].'' White, who is well-known for his belief that the US must make strategic room - up to a point - to accommodate China, says the West's behaviour will play a big part in whether China becomes a constructive or disruptive power.

In remarks that reveal much about the perspective from China, Professor Shen of Shanghai says that as a ''normal great power'', China has every right to build its navy in order to deter American ''interference''.

''China's legitimate national interests are still undermined by the US,'' he says. ''America has interfered in mainland China's unification with Taiwan, and its region-based alliances have served its purpose of military intervention.

''Australia is on the US strategic chessboard for such purpose … Australia shall not expect to be entitled to follow the US to threaten China without hurting itself.''

There are, it should be noted, some optimistic signs as well, with China using its military power for some positive purposes.

Li Mingjiang says China sent its largest hospital ship to the Philippines in the wake of typhoon Haiyan even though it is in a territorial dispute with the country. Its contribution was meagre next to that of the US and Japan, but it was a watershed - the first time it had made such a substantial military-humanitarian mission.

''It was not very satisfactory in the eyes of many regional observers. They could have done a lot more … But it was a positive first step,'' Li says.

China has also done counter-piracy work in the Indian Ocean for five years. And one of the ships on the recent exercise near Australia was a brand new landing ship that can carry hundreds of marines - perfect for stabilisation operations, evacuations and disaster relief.

Whatever the lingering ambiguity in how China means to use its new power, the growth of its navy and the recent exercise ought to play heavily in the thinking of Australia's military planners as they prepare the next defence white paper over the coming year, Medcalf says.

Obvious immediate steps will include much greater use of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands for maritime surveillance, which will need to include an upgrade of the airstrip for the Royal Australian Air Force's new P-8 Poseidon surveillance planes.

The latest Chinese manoeuvre also bolsters the case for Australia to invest in long-range surveillance drones, Medcalf says.

In the longer term, Australia's planning depends heavily on whether the US can maintain its strategic ''pivot'' to Asia given its fiscal problems. Some analysts are already calling for Canberra to start hedging by building closer relations with India, which is the only possible counterweight to China in the event of American decline.

Medcalf points out that the Defence boffins plan mostly according to what other countries can do militarily, not by guessing what they intend to do. Intentions change.

Writing a defence white paper may be a herculean task, but at least one aspect has got a bit easier: China is very busy showing the world what it can do.