Australia moves to arm troops with anti-ship missiles as China threat looms

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Australia is scrambling to deploy new long-range missiles as the recent arrival of powerful Chinese warships off the Australian coast delivers a sharp reminder of Beijing’s growing naval muscle.

In a move to boost military firepower, Canberra plans to arm Australian soldiers with anti-ship missiles and advanced targeting radars to protect the country’s vast maritime approaches, according to contract announcements as well as a flurry of recent official speeches and ministerial statements.

Two new types of advanced anti-ship missiles for the army fired from mobile launchers are under evaluation with a decision expected by the end of the year, the government has said.

Australian government officials have said that future versions of one of the contenders, Lockheed Martin’s Precision Strike Missile, were expected to have a range of up to 1,000km and could be fired from High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) launchers. Australia has 42 HIMARS launchers on order from the United States, with launchers expected to be in service from 2026-27, according to the defense department.

The U.S. Army in June used two Precision Strike Missiles to successfully attack a moving target at sea during an exercise in the Pacific, the army said in a statement.

China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) jolted Australia’s security services with the deployment of three warships – one of its most potent cruisers, a frigate and a replenishment ship – close to the country’s biggest cities of Sydney and Melbourne late last month. Air traffic between Australia and New Zealand was disrupted with 49 flights diverted on February 21 when the Chinese flotilla held what appeared to be a live fire exercise in the Tasman Sea without notifying authorities in Canberra or Wellington.

The office of the Australian defense minister didn’t respond to questions for this story.

The new missiles for the Australian army would deliver a potent strike capability and act as a deterrent to potential adversaries, according to Mick Ryan, a retired Australian army Major General.

“You could put a HIMARS launcher with a maritime strike missile in Sydney and it would have the potential to hit one of those ships,” Ryan said.

New missiles for the Australian army are a key element of Canberra’s plan to prepare for a more assertive Chinese military presence in waters around Australia. They could also be deployed to support allied forces defending strategically important islands in the Asia-Pacific region in the event of conflict, military experts told Reuters.

New long-range missiles are also on order for Australia’s navy and air force.

To counter what senior Australian officials describe as the “greatest strategic uncertainty” since World War Two, Canberra will spend up to AUD$74 billion ($47 billion) over a decade on targeting technology, long-range strike capacity, missile defense and manufacturing of missiles and explosives, according to official speeches and defense planning documents.

Canberra is not alone turning to these long-range strike weapons to counter the threat from China. The U.S. and most of its key allies in Asia, including the Philippines, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, are also modernizing and expanding their missile forces. They are deploying new missiles, accelerating research on hypersonic weapons and other new technologies, re-purposing older projectiles and expanding production lines.

Asked how China viewed the decision by Australia and other countries to boost their missile arsenals, a foreign ministry spokesperson said Beijing was pursuing “a defensive national defense policy,” and China shouldn't be used “as an excuse to exaggerate tensions" and "incite arms races.”

For some of America’s regional allies, this quest for new missiles is likely to take on new urgency with growing uncertainty over the Trump administration’s commitment to traditional security ties, according to Ross Babbage, a former Australian government defense official and now a senior non-resident fellow at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

In response to questions from Reuters, a Pentagon spokesperson cited Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as having said that deterring China was a priority for his department. “One of the ways we do that is by building and maintaining a strong network of allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific,” said Pentagon press secretary John Ullyot. “There should be no doubt to our commitment to the safety and stability of the region.”

PRESSURE TO INCREASE SPENDING

Allies like Australia with modest defense outlays are already under pressure from a Trump administration that is showing open frustration with countries it believes should be spending more.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s nominee for Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Eldridge Colby, told his Senate confirmation hearing earlier this month that Australian defense spending was well below the target of 3% of GDP suggested by NATO leadership for its members. He said Canberra faced a far more powerful challenge from China.

Australia currently spends about 2% of GDP on defense. Some critics of Australia’s defense spending say successive governments have allowed urgent military programs to languish, including the introduction of new missiles.

“This deserves a high degree of priority,” said Babbage, referring to the deployment and manufacture of missiles. “We ought to be really turbo-charging this.”

Babbage said if there was conflict in the Indo-Pacific region, it was likely to become protracted and allied forces would need deep stocks of missiles and the capacity to produce more.

Security officials in Canberra anticipate that Chinese warships will become regular visitors off the Australian coast and in bigger numbers. And, like the fleet that exercised off Australia’s coast, these exercises would test Canberra’s political resolve and the surveillance capabilities of the Australian military.

Australia’s Director General of National Intelligence, Andrew Shearer, told a parliamentary inquiry on February 24 that some of the Chinese fleet’s activities seemed “designed to be provocative,” while acknowledging it had complied with international law.

Shearer said that after the biggest and least transparent military build-up since the Second World War, China now had the capability to project military power into Australia’s region and intended to do so more often.

China has "repeatedly briefed" about its naval exercises, the foreign ministry spokesperson said. These exercises are “fully in line with international law and international practices,” the spokesperson said.

Canberra’s embrace of missiles echoes that of earlier military planners in Beijing. Decades ago, when the PLA was a backward ground force with obsolete weapons, it began to build a massive missile force as the cheapest and fastest way to bridge the gap with the U.S. and its allies.

Missiles are relatively cheap but pose a deadly threat to high-value targets such as warships, strike aircraft, military bases and logistics centers. This makes these weapons a natural choice for weaker militaries confronted with much stronger adversaries.

Now that China can rival American military power in Asia, outgunned regional rivals are following the same blueprint. A key objective of this allied response is the deployment of longer-range missiles that match or exceed the reach of those in the PLA arsenal.

In December, Canberra announced it would choose either the Naval Strike Missile, developed by Norway’s Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace, or Lockheed’s Precision Strike Missile for two new army regiments tasked with maritime defense. U.S. Marines in the Indo-Pacific region are already using the Naval Strike Missile fired from a ground-based launcher. 

In early January, the government announced a contract of more than AUD$100 million ($63 million) for Thales Australia to deliver 40 command and control vehicles for the new missile regiments.

To detect threats, the army’s missile regiments will be equipped with new radars. Last month, Canberra ordered up to 14 multi-mission phased-array radars from Canberra-based CEA Technologies in a contract worth AUD$272 million.

One of the advantages of these land-based mobile missile systems is that they can be easily dispersed and concealed but still pack the punch of a much more expensive warship and strike aircraft.

“It’s a truck,” said Ryan. “You can park it under a tree and come out to fire it and move back again. They won’t find you.”

(Reporting by David Lague. Additional reporting by Idrees Ali in Washington. Edited by Peter Hirschberg.)