What is as grey as an overcast sky, around 180 metres long, and designed to terrify?
That would be the Zunyi, the People’s Liberation Army Navy Type 055 Renhai-class guided-missile cruiser, currently displacing around 12,000 tonnes of the Tasman sea.
These new Renhai-class ships have created quite the buzz in naval circles; the US Naval Institute website, not known for its emotive language, called it “among the most formidable warships afloat”.
The Zunyi’s anti-ship missiles are capable of sinking a ship 537 kilometres away. She has 112 universal vertical launch system (VLS) missile tubes, able to hold and fire a variety of flying bombs including surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) with a range of over 185 km (100 nautical miles). Potentially, she can fire land-attack cruise missiles and guide anti-satellite missiles.
For context, the Zunyi came within 150 nautical miles (276 km) of Sydney. (As I write, the flotilla is “holding position” east of Tasmania, outside Australia’s exclusive economic zone.)
Naturally, the Zunyi bristles with all the radar, sonar, ‘intelligence systems’ and electronic warfare gizmos to be expected in a state with such an interest in surveillance.
Escorting the Zunyi, as it went about live-fire drills off the coast of New South Wales, was a frigate and supply vessel.
Thanks to a shocking lack of appropriate notification (usually between 24 to 48 hours) of two live-fire drills, commercial flights had to divert course. When the warning came, said the New Zealand Defence Force, it was via radio and not the usual (quaintly named) ‘Notice to Airmen’.
As PM Christopher Luxon told reporters, “There might be a better place to do live fire drills… [than] a busy international airspace… It is different from what we have observed before, there is no doubt.”
He sounded as confronted as the rest of us. These live-fire drills may be legal under international law, but they are far from routine.
China is sending us a message.
We know what that message is, because we have heard it before. Last year China fired an intercontinental missile into the South Pacific, days after the HMNZS Aotearoa sailed through the Taiwan Strait. Chinese ships and submarines prowl US and Australian coasts in response to US and Australasian military presence in waters it claims for itself.
As US influence in the Pacific wanes under its incompetent president, China’s reach grows, along with the size of her fleet. In May last year, the Naval News reported that the 10th Renhai-class warship had just been launched, with the 11th and 12th not far behind. We will be seeing more Type 055s in our waters.
Last week the Cook Islands announced a five-year agreement with China to explore its seabed for mineral riches. The Penrhyn Basin, between the islands of Penrhyn and Aitutaki, may contain one of the world’s richest troves of cobalt, titanium, tellurium, niobium and rare-earth elements like yttrium, as Jonathan Milne details in Newsroom. These minerals, he says, “are key to new technologies, especially building batteries for an electrified world”.
“I’m not suggesting that China is about to lay claim to the South Pacific, but I am suggesting that this new goldrush is gaining momentum. New Zealand is responsible for the Cooks’ defence and security – so we need to have our eyes wide open.”
Canterbury University’s Anne-Marie Brady, an expert in Chinese domestic and foreign politics, has urged New Zealand to look to its defence. “The … naval exercises in the Tasman Sea which have affected flights across the Tasman is one of those moments, I think, which we’ll look back on history when everything changed…. This government last year twice cut defence spending which is absolutely shocking. They need to increase defence spending and they need to invest in drones and other modern technology.”
Although some have suggested that China’s Tasman Sea sabre-rattling is an ‘own goal’, pushing New Zealand towards AUKUS (the security partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States), Donald Trump’s bizarre behavior complicates this picture.
Before the US election, in September 2024, the leaders of Australia, the UK and the US consulted with Canada, New Zealand and South Korea on how to work together under AUKUS Pillar II.
Today the leader of the free world is threatening Canada, Greenland, Gaza and Panama, and repeating Russian propaganda against Ukraine. Trump is a geopolitical earthquake which NATO and the EU may not survive. One thing is clear – he (and henchmen like Elon Musk) cannot be trusted.
Our intelligence is now being shared with a new America, one which openly supports Russian aggression against former US allies. Even GPS is wholly owned by the US Space Force.
“European states share intelligence with the US,” writes the English journalist George Monbiot. “This could now be equivalent to sharing it with Putin. The US has multiple bases in our countries. The UK’s nuclear weapons are dependent on the US for maintenance and probably more. If the US is our enemy, it’s already inside the gates.”
• Jenny Nicholls
© Waiheke Gulf News Ltd 2025
