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Understanding the Chinese military threat to Australia
China’s military build-up is reshaping Asia’s security order and bringing into question Australia’s relative isolation from military threats. This paper examines how China’s military build-up to 2035 might challenge assumptions about Australian security by scrutinising China’s long-range military capabilities today and in a decade’s time.
While long-range power projection forces of the kind needed to strike Australia are not the highest priority in China’s military modernisation, its capabilities are nevertheless growing. The most immediate and serious threats to Australian security do not require Chinese weapons to reach the Australian landmass. China already possesses robust capabilities to interdict Australia’s maritime trade through the chokepoints of the Indonesian archipelago, to sever the undersea cables on which Australian communications and commerce depend, and to conduct sophisticated cyber operations against Australia’s critical infrastructure. These capabilities are available to China today and will grow over the coming decade.
The direct strike threat to Australian territory is real and growing but should be understood within this broader context. The primary conventional strike threat over the next decade will come from Chinese missiles, fired from surface ships, submarines, and potentially from Chinese territory via the DF-27 intermediate-range ballistic missile. Two developments could dramatically escalate this threat: either the fielding of a new long-range bomber before the decade is out, or the basing of existing bombers and missiles closer to Australia. Beyond these direct threats, China’s military build-up is reshaping the Indo-Pacific balance of power in ways that affect Australian security regardless of China’s ability to strike Australian territory.
No institution will be more influential to Indo-Pacific security in coming decades than China’s military — the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The PLA now has the most ships of any navy in the world, and it is the second-largest navy by tonnage. China’s shipbuilding capacity is more than 200 times greater than that of the United States. China is the only country in the world producing heavy bombers. It is the only country in the world with two fifth-generation jet fighter designs in production and two sixth-generation designs conducting flight tests. China is expected to triple the size of its nuclear weapons arsenal by 2035. All this is occurring as China’s ambitions as a regional and global power expand.
The bulk of China’s military modernisation effort has focused on four areas: developing the forces needed to invade Taiwan, creating a counter-intervention force sufficient to deter or defeat a US-led attempt to support Taiwan, securing Chinese interests in the East and South China Seas, and defending China’s territory against air and missile attack. Although not the highest priority, China is also increasing its ability to project military power over long distances using missiles, aircraft, and ships, many with the ability to reach Australia. This paper examines the specific capabilities China is building and what they could do to Australia.
In response to China’s military rise, Australia has made a series of historic defence policy decisions. It has committed to its biggest and most ambitious procurement project ever (the supply of nuclear-powered submarines under the AUKUS arrangement), to the stationing of US combat forces on Australian soil for the first time since the Second World War, and to increasing the defence budget so that it reaches roughly 2.4 per cent of GDP by 2034.
The dramatic modernisation of the PLA is transforming Australia’s security posture and the Australian Defence Force. Yet this transformation has thus far not been accompanied by a thorough assessment, published in the public domain, of the military threat China poses to Australia, and how that threat might grow. This paper seeks to fill that gap, projecting threat potential over five- and ten-year horizons.
China has not fought a war since 1979, a short ground campaign on the border with Vietnam. The advanced air and maritime capabilities examined in this Analysis have never been tested in combat. A 2025 Pentagon report on the PLA says “Senior CCP and PLA leaders are keenly aware that China’s military has not experienced combat in decades nor fought with its current suite of capabilities and organisational structures.” Chinese president Xi Jinping’s purges of senior PLA leaders — beginning in 2022 and reaching a peak in 2025 — might indicate that he is far from satisfied about the Chinese military’s ability to conduct complex missions.
Nevertheless, Xi has also instructed the PLA to be ready for a Taiwan invasion by 2027, and training activity around the island has increased and become more sophisticated in recent years. In 2020, China demonstrated the capability to hit a moving ship with a ballistic missile. In 2025, the PLA undertook a record number of operations around Taiwan and in the South China Sea, and continued to place pressure on Japan over disputed islands in the East China Sea. Further afield, China has also increased the rate and scale of its long-distance naval activity. It has conducted regular deployments to the Gulf of Aden since 2008 to participate in counter-piracy operations, and in 2025 it deployed a flotilla to circumnavigate Australia.
We should assume, therefore, that China is not building a “paper tiger” force simply to keep the Communist Party in power or to be shown off at parades. China is striving to build a world-class military that can fight and win against technologically advanced adversaries.
It is important to emphasise some limits to this study. First, it focuses on military capability, not China’s intentions to use it. We make no judgements about why China would ever attack Australia, only how it could do so. Governments cannot plan their defences solely on the basis of what a country might do, because intentions can change in moments. They need to plan on the basis of what a foreign country is able to do.
Second, this study does not consider China’s nuclear arsenal or other weapons of mass destruction; its focus is on conventional forces.
Third, the paper does not address the military and political effects China could achieve by attacking Australia. Can China’s fleet of missiles destroy Australia’s key military facilities, or can they be protected by a combination of missile defences and force dispersal? Would Chinese interruption of seaborne trade force Australia to give in to Beijing’s political demands, or could Australia endure such pressure? Can cyberattacks cripple critical infrastructure for extended periods, or will they cause only temporary inconvenience? Can the vulnerability of submarine cables be mitigated by repair vessels and the increased use of satellites? These questions are subject to vigorous debate, and the paper makes no judgement.
Fourth, this Analysis focuses on China’s weapons and not its ability to use them. While the numbers and sophistication of weapons platforms are of course key inputs to the power of a military, an array of enabling factors is needed to ensure such platforms can deliver their intended effects. Supporting capabilities such as command-and-control systems, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, logistics, and training are no less fundamental than ships, bombers, and submarines.
The final limit to this study is that it focuses on China’s ability to threaten Australia directly — that is, its ability to target Australian territory, external territories, and immediate maritime surrounds, including seaborne trade and submarine cables. The paper makes no attempt to examine the PLA’s ability to threaten Australia’s interests beyond those narrow bounds, though these interests certainly exist and may indeed outweigh the primarily territorial considerations examined here. The threat to Australian territory is a natural starting point for examining military threats to Australia, but Australia’s security interests do not end with territorial defence.
In the following analysis, we project post-1991 trends in Chinese defence spending, procurement, and technological development forward to 2030 and 2035, focusing on those systems that have the range to target Australia. What will the PLA’s power-projection capabilities look like in those time frames? We break down our forecasts by missile, air, naval, amphibious, and cyber capabilities.
The scenarios in which force could be used against Australia, and the objectives of any such operation, are wide-ranging. Although the obvious and likely targets for a Chinese attack would be major military and security facilities on Australian soil, China’s motive for attacking Australia could be broader or simply different from degrading its military capabilities.
Military action against Australia could occur as part of a larger war involving the United States or as a limited campaign to coerce Australia. If China merely sought to send a warning, it might strike an offshore oil facility or occupy it with personnel from a coast guard vessel. If it sought to achieve economic effects against Australia, it might attack ports, airports, bridges, and railway facilities. If it sought to coerce the government by punishing the Australian population, as Russia is now doing in Ukraine, it might use missiles or cyber weapons against public infrastructure such as the energy network. If the intent was “decapitation” of Australia’s political leadership — again, something Russia has attempted in Ukraine — targets would include government buildings and residences.
China does not necessarily need to attack Australia directly to affect its interests. It might seek to disrupt Australia’s national life at sea. Ninety-nine per cent of Australia’s international trade by volume — 1.6 billion tonnes with an annual value of AU$650 billion — goes through its ports. Seaborne trade allows the importation of key goods including fuel, motor vehicles, telecommunication equipment, machinery, pharmaceutical products, and civil engineering equipment. Maritime traffic to Australia could be restricted by a quarantine, a demonstration of force via the sinking of one or more ships, a distant blockade of ships trading with Australia, or a close blockade of Australian ports.
Undersea cables present further vulnerabilities. These complex networks carry up to 95 per cent of all international data worldwide, routing it through a latticework of fibre-optic cables that lie on the sea floor. Despite advances in satellite communications, physical cables remain the technology of choice for high-speed and high-volume communication. The locations of these cables are all publicly declared to avoid ships accidentally damaging them with anchors. But this leaves them open to sabotage.
The scenarios and targets for Chinese military action against Australia are the outcome of highly complex political and military decisions that are beyond the scope of this study. Again, the intention here is to examine Chinese military capabilities, not its reasons for using them.
Before assessing what the PLA could do to Australia, it is worth examining what China itself declares as the PLA’s core missions. China’s 2019 Defence White Paper sets these out as follows:
China insists that its military posture is defensive in nature and that it does not seek hegemony, expansion, or a sphere of influence. China’s record on territorial claims is more assertive than its defensive rhetoric suggests. Its construction and militarisation of artificial islands in the South China Sea, its sustained pressure on Taiwan, and its actions on the Sino-Indian border all point to a state willing to use its growing military power to advance its interests.
Claims that China harbours no ambitions for hegemony or a sphere of influence must also be treated sceptically. Imperial China’s foreign relations were based on deference to Chinese interests by weaker powers, and given the economic and strategic weight of modern China, it would be surprising if that tradition was not revived in the present day. There are few historical examples of powerful states that do not seek leadership of their region.
The modernisation of the PLA is one vital element in achieving China’s ambitions. Xi Jinping aims to complete China’s “great rejuvenation” — to transform the country into a prosperous, technologically advanced, and militarily predominant global superpower — by 2049. This is also the deadline for the transformation of the PLA into a “world-class force”. By 2035, the timeline for this Analysis, the PLA will have completed the bulk of its planned modernisation. And while there are many interpretations of what a “world-class military” might be, it is clear that it involves the ability to conduct long-range operations and thus project military power around the world.
Military observers typically mark 1991 as the year China’s modernisation drive began. US troops drove Saddam Hussein’s forces from Kuwait in brutally efficient fashion, sending a chilling message to Beijing about how outdated its own forces were in comparison. Five years later, the dispatch of US aircraft carriers to the Taiwan Strait as a show of force in support of Taiwan’s presidential elections was another stark reminder to Beijing of its military inferiority.
There is wide disagreement among Western observers about the budgetary scale of this modernisation process. Since the early 1990s, Chinese defence spending has grown from roughly $11 billion to a nominal $231 billion — and, by our estimate, could be as high as $540.7 billion.
China publishes official figures about its defence spending, but Western observers agree that these disclosures are not credible. They exclude spending on research and development, foreign equipment purchases, military pensions, and paramilitary forces (e.g. the People’s Armed Police and Coast Guard), items that are typically included when Western governments calculate their own defence budgets.
When these items are included, as MIT political scientist M. Taylor Fravel has done in his budget estimates, Chinese defence spending in 2024 was $474 billion. We used this figure as our baseline to estimate likely Chinese defence spending over the next decade. We assumed (conservatively) that future increases will roughly match the average year-on-year increase over the past decade. Figures were drawn from Pentagon reports on Chinese military power and Chinese government announcements. We then projected indicative figures for 2025 to 2035. We applied the same rate backwards to estimate spending from 2000 (see Figure 1).
We estimate that by 2035, China’s defence spending will be approximately $977.4 billion. This will still be less than current US defence spending but indicates that China is serious about closing the gap. Moreover, due to a variety of economic and industrial factors, China is likely able to achieve a higher dollar-for-dollar return on its military investments than the United States. China does not plan to replicate the US military wholesale, but it does treat it as a model to match. Where the United States considers China a “pacing threat”, the PLA likely sees the US military as a benchmark against which to measure its progress.
The PLA Rocket Force (PLARF) is China’s most effective means of long-range strike against Australia. In the event of a major regional conflict, bases across northern Australia would be targets for the PLARF.
The destructive effect of ballistic and cruise missiles on unprotected and “thin-skinned” targets such as radars or parked aircraft is well known. A 2024 simulation exercise by the Stimson Center concluded that PLARF runway attacks would stop fighter operations from US bases in Japan for at least 12 days, and much longer for the heavier bombers and tanker aircraft that would operate from Australian bases. A 2025 paper published in International Security concluded that PLARF attacks would destroy at least 45 per cent of US air assets in North Asia in the first 30 days of a war over Taiwan.
The crown jewel of the PLARF is the DF-26, the only Chinese conventional system that can reach Australia without first having to be carried within firing range by a bomber, ship, or submarine. But the DF-26 can only reach northern Australia, and only when deployed to one of Beijing’s artificially built islands in the South China Sea.
There is no conclusive evidence in open sources that China has fielded a missile capable of reaching the entire Australian landmass when fired from the Chinese mainland. However, the Pentagon has referred to a DF-27 missile with a 5,000–8,000 kilometre range, and it may have entered service. There is also speculation about China having built an intercontinental ballistic missile armed with a non-nuclear warhead.
In the DF-21D and DF-26B, the PLARF possesses two highly capable anti-ship ballistic missiles. These weapons, dubbed “aircraft carrier killers”, are capable of striking ships across the Indonesian archipelago and into the Timor and Arafura Seas, threatening Australia’s trade routes. They are now fielded in such large numbers that they pose a threat to all surface vessels, not just carriers.
Figure 2 shows the last decade of growth in the PLARF’s inventory of missiles and launchers, with predictions to 2035. The most significant increase is in its stock of intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs). These weapons have a range of 4,000–8,000 kilometres, at the very least holding northern Australia at risk. The growth in medium- and short-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs and SRBMs) is also significant. The PLA holds much greater stocks of these systems relative to IRBMs, which offers an indication of where China’s priorities lie. Nonetheless, our forecast shows that China is serious about its long-range missile strike capacity: it entered 2016 with virtually no IRBM capability and may close out 2035 with more than 1,000 such systems (see Figure 3).
PLA Air Force (PLAAF) long-range bombers have only limited capability to attack targets on the Australian continent. China has a substantial force of modernised H-6 bombers based on a 1950s-era Soviet design. But with a combat radius of approximately 3,500 kilometres, the H-6 could only hit targets in Australia if operating from artificial islands in the South China Sea. With support from aerial refuelling aircraft, such missions could be flown from the Chinese mainland, but these would be highly complex operations. China has demonstrated no such capability but could plausibly develop it over the next decade.
General Stephen Davis, head of US Air Force Global Strike Command, has called China’s bombers “at best” a regional force. Long-range maritime strike appears to be the PLA’s priority. The H-6J, which we forecast will grow in numbers over the next decade, is a maritime strike platform with integrated reconnaissance. Its main role would be to blunt counter-intervention in a Taiwan war.
The growth of the H-6N fleet is nonetheless significant (see Figure 4). It appears capable of carrying an air-launched version of China’s DF-21D — possibly the JL-1 air-launched ballistic missile (ALBM), which reportedly has a range of up to 8,000 kilometres — vastly extending its strike potential. The H-6N is also the first H-6 variant capable of air-to-air refuelling (AAR). Although this will give the H-6N genuine long-range reach, the AAR fleet will still lag far behind America’s in 2035.
In expanding its AAR fleet, China has begun to field the Y-20B. Analysts have suggested that this aircraft is more likely to be a multi-role tanker/transport (MRTT). This would be an important capability for China — a modular aircraft that can fulfil transport and aerial refuelling roles.
Since the introduction of the first Y-20 in 2013, China has constructed around 98 Y-20 variants, an average build rate of 8.1 airframes per year. At this pace, the PLAAF could field 45 Y-20B MRTTs by 2030, and 86 by 2035. As the PLA phases out older aircraft, it is likely that China’s air force will field more than 100 air-to-air refuellers by 2035 (see Figure 5). By comparison, the United States operates many times that number today in its air force alone, and as many as 610 in total.
Introducing a new long-range bomber would reduce the need for aerial refuelling support, and China is known to be developing the stealthy H-20. But the Pentagon assessed in December 2024 that the H-20 would not debut until “sometime in the next decade”, meaning it is unlikely to be fielded in meaningful numbers until the mid-2030s, at best. In September 2025, evidence emerged of a stealthy drone with the size and range to strike targets anywhere in Australia. It is not known if or when this aircraft will enter service.
Finally, bomber production will likely run at around seven airframes per year as older models are retired — markedly lower than China’s output of short- and mid-range combat aircraft. This reflects China’s focus on a Taiwan contingency and a broader counter-intervention strategy.
The PLA Navy (PLAN) will continue to grow its surface fleet over the next decade, increasing its ability to project power closer to Australian shores. This expansion will occur primarily in ocean-going or “blue water” vessels such as aircraft carriers (see Figure 6), destroyers (see Figure 7), frigates (see Figure 8), and the replenishment ships that support ocean-going fleets (see Figure 9).
The PLAN remains primarily focused on operating within and around China’s “first island chain” and increasingly its “second island chain”, but it now has extensive experience of distant, long-duration missions of the kind that would be required to threaten Australia. This experience has mainly come from regular counter-piracy deployments to the Gulf of Aden since 2008, missions that involve destroyers, frigates, and support ships. In March 2025, a PLAN taskforce led by a Type 055 Renhai-class destroyer circumnavigated Australia and conducted live-fire exercises off Australian waters, resulting in disruptions to commercial air travel. Such deployments, including with aircraft carriers, are likely to become regular and more frequent over the coming decade as China seeks to transform the South Pacific “from being a ‘Western backyard’ to serving as a ‘multipolar arena’”.
China’s third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, was commissioned in late 2025, and a nuclear-powered carrier is under construction. The PLA’s existing carriers are now demonstrating impressive aerial mission rates, suggesting its competency in operating these vessels as fighting ships is improving. In 2025, China’s carrier fleet spent 58 days operating in the second island chain, up from 32 days the year before. The Pentagon’s 2025 report on the Chinese military assesses that the PLA will seek to add six carriers to its force by 2035, for a total of nine (see Figure 6).
All these assets will give China’s surface fleet formidable capacity to deploy close to Australia. But once there, the fleet must be capable of projecting military power ashore. At present, its primary means of doing so is the CJ-10 land-attack cruise missile (LACM), which has a range of more than 1,500 kilometres. The Type 055 destroyer might carry two or three dozen such missiles, depending on the mission. The smaller Type 052D destroyer can also carry this weapon, but in smaller numbers. Over the next decade, the CJ-10 will likely be supplemented or replaced by a hypersonic LACM. Our forecast indicates that by 2035, China will have 67 destroyers in service capable of carrying such weapons, along with 60 smaller frigates (see Figures 7 and 8).
Beyond its ability to project power against the Australian landmass, China’s surface fleet already poses a significant threat to Australia’s maritime trade. Much of this trade passes through the sea lanes of the Indonesian archipelago. Operating from bases in the South China Sea, PLAN surface vessels could threaten these lanes, with potential interdiction alone likely to raise insurance premiums, deter commercial shipping, and inflict broader economic damage on Australia. The DF-21D and DF-26B anti-ship ballistic missiles, deployable from South China Sea outposts, extend this threat into the Timor and Arafura Seas without Chinese vessels needing to approach Australian waters at all.
Growth of the carrier fleet is also likely to enhance the surface fleet’s ability to project power ashore — though there is yet no sign that China wants to use its carriers that way. Their shipborne aircraft have not been seen carrying land-attack munitions, suggesting the priority is fleet and territorial air defence, including for Taiwan. Carrier-based strike capability is likely to emerge over the next decade.
The PLA has started construction of a new class of what is probably a combat support ship (AOE) at its yards in Guangzhou. With a likely displacement of up to 65,000 tonnes, this ship will be larger than China’s current Type 901 AOE and the largest AOE ever constructed by the US Navy. This ship indicates that the PLAN is serious about projecting naval power far from its shores, as AOEs typically escort aircraft carrier battlegroups to increase their range and endurance. At the same time, China has continued to build the smaller Type 903 design, which is better suited to supporting fleets within the second island chain (see Figure 9), suggesting that long-range power projection, while clearly part of the PLAN’s ambition, remains secondary to nearer-seas operations for now.
As China’s submarine fleet grows in size and sophistication, its ability to use these platforms to strike targets on the Australian mainland will also grow. Nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs) armed with cruise missiles would be an attractive option given their long range, endurance, and stealth. Submarines powered by non-nuclear engines (SSKs) operate at shorter ranges and are therefore unlikely to be deployed to Australia. Trends in the production and retirement of Chinese submarines point towards a gradual drawdown of SSKs over the next decade, by which time we estimate the PLAN will operate 35 conventionally powered attack submarines and 25 nuclear-powered attack submarines (see Figure 10).
China is only beginning to field land-attack cruise missiles on its submarines. The YJ-18C was publicly displayed at the 2025 Beijing military parade, an event that typically features systems that are, or will soon become, operational. These missiles are expected to be deployed on the latest version of the Type 093 SSN and then the Type 095 SSN, a more modern design.
Historically, Chinese SSN production has been slow but is expected to ramp up dramatically due to the expansion of the Bohai shipyard, China’s one facility engaged in building nuclear-powered submarines. This shipyard will have an estimated capacity of 4.5 to 6 boats per year — 3 to 4 SSNs and 1.5 to 2 SSBNs. Of the 25 SSNs we estimate will be in service by 2035, all are likely to deploy cruise missiles or perhaps hypersonic missiles. Typically, an SSN carries 12 to 18 such missiles; after they are fired, the submarine must return to port to re-arm. Each individual boat therefore offers a pinpoint but not persistent strike capability. Across a fleet of 25 SSNs, however, China would possess the capacity to prosecute sustained strike operations against Australian targets, rotating boats through patrol cycles to maintain persistent threat coverage.
In late May 2026, China launched what appears to be a new class of submarine from its yards in Shanghai. At the time of writing, its capabilities and specifications are unclear, though its size suggests it is nuclear-powered but will not carry ballistic missiles. The Shanghai yards have historically not played a role in nuclear-powered submarine construction, so if production there grows, the forecasts in Figure 10 will need to be revised upwards.
Amphibious operations are among the most complex any military can undertake, but as China expands its PLAN Marine Corps and builds more sophisticated amphibious assault ships, its ability to conduct long-range raids or larger assaults will grow.
The 2007 commissioning of China’s first Type 071 amphibious transport dock, displacing 25,000 tonnes, marked the beginning of a major expansion of China’s ocean-going amphibious fleet. It now has eight Type 071s, and in 2021 added its first 35,000-tonne landing helicopter dock (the Type 075), four of which are now commissioned. An even larger vessel, the Type 076 amphibious carrier, capable of launching airborne drones and carrying thousands of troops, has been launched and will likely be commissioned in 2026. We estimate that the PLAN may operate as many as 20 landing helicopter docks (LHDs) and amphibious assault ships by 2035 (see Figure 11). China also uses civilian shipping to supplement its amphibious capabilities.
The expansion of the PLAN Marine Corps from 8 to 11 brigades in 2023, making a total force of 55,000 personnel, gives the PLA the ability to land ground combat forces onshore thousands of kilometres from home, and support them with air power and missiles. This would be enough for small-scale lodgements, perhaps on Australian external territories. China has yet to demonstrate such a capability, though in late 2025, a PLAN task group that included an amphibious vessel did approach Australian waters, demonstrating at least an intent to operate such forces at long range. The PLAN Marine Corps also fields two special forces brigades that could be put ashore by smaller vessels, including civilian ships or submarines, to disrupt communications facilities, naval bases, or air bases.
In the lead-up to or during a major conflict, China will likely employ cyberattacks “to generate negative impacts on an adversary’s societal, economic, political, and military structures”. To create conditions favourable to achieving strategic goals, it will seek to use “large-scale information attacks [to] paralyse the social information network, thereby causing chaos in the national economic system and triggering social unrest”.
The Australian Signals Directorate assesses that foreign state-sponsored actors will continue to target Australia with cyber threats in an attempt to undermine decision-making, critical infrastructure, and supply chains. Among those actors, China is at the forefront, with the PLA part of a national cyber effort that includes multiple state-run agencies and private actors directed by the state. The 2025 Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community assessed that the “PRC remains the most active and persistent cyber threat to US government, private-sector, and critical infrastructure networks”. These threats also apply to Australia.
Between 2015 and 2024, the PLA’s cyber capabilities sat within the Strategic Support Force (SSF), a service branch that also held responsibility for electronic and space warfare as well as information systems and logistics. Following reforms in April 2024, the SSF was dissolved and its functions split into four arms — the Joint Logistics Support Force, Aerospace Force, Information Support Force, and Cyberspace Force.
Information about the PLA’s Cyberspace Force (CSF) is scarce, but its multiple units have been identified as conducting cyberattacks on the United States, Japan, and Europe. Unit 61398 was estimated in 2013 to be staffed by at least hundreds and possibly thousands of people.
The CSF is likely to be tasked with cyber espionage and attack against military targets rather than civilian ones. It appears that cyber operations against civilian targets are more the purview of organisations such as the Ministry of State Security and the Ministry of Public Security.
The sophistication of civilian-targeted operations is well documented. The Salt and Volt Typhoon operations of recent years demonstrate the scale and ambition of China’s approach: China’s cyber actors were detected operating within US medical, telecommunications, and other critical infrastructure networks, pre-positioned for activation in a crisis rather than for immediate exploitation. This is analogous to pre-positioning submarines, surface vessels, or missiles ahead of a conflict. Australia is not insulated from these operations. The Australian Signals Directorate has confirmed state-sponsored Chinese cyber actors are actively targeting Australian critical infrastructure networks.
This Analysis focuses on the known facts about the size and capability of China’s power projection forces and on making some informed forecasts about the decade ahead. What emerges is a threat picture across multiple domains simultaneously. China can already threaten Australia’s trade routes, its undersea communications infrastructure, and its critical systems through cyber operations — none of which requires a weapon to reach the Australian landmass. The direct strike threat is real and growing, primarily through missiles fired from surface ships, submarines, and potentially from Chinese territory. Two developments could escalate this threat dramatically: a new long-range bomber or forward basing of existing systems. China has actively sought basing arrangements in Pacific Island nations since at least 2018. Any such base would bring central Australia within H-6 combat range and allow attacks to be mounted more frequently.
The threat to Australia’s security extends well beyond China’s capacity to strike Australian territory. The growing reach and capability of the PLA have already eroded the military advantage of Australia’s ally, the United States, and sharply increased the threat to Taiwan. Combined with its island-building campaign, China’s build-up has made it the dominant military power in the South China Sea, creating conditions for a regional arms race that could itself damage Australian interests. Regional states face growing pressure to accommodate Chinese preferences as the balance shifts, even where they resist doing so openly. The primary counterweight is the credibility of US extended deterrence and the cohesion of US-led security arrangements, both of which China’s build-up is directly designed to erode. The PLA is thus helping China to construct a sphere of influence in Southeast Asia that excludes Australia and its partners.
In sum, these changes represent a historic shift that affects Australia’s interests regardless of China’s capacity to strike Australian territory directly. This Analysis should be read as the beginning of a broader effort to evaluate China’s military capabilities from an Australian perspective — a subject that demands sustained research.
| Acronym | Meaning |
|---|---|
| AAR | Air-to-air refuelling |
| ALBM | Air-launched ballistic missile |
| AOEH | Fast combat support ship (helicopter-capable) |
| AORH | Replenishment oiler (helicopter-capable) |
| ASR | Submarine rescue craft |
| AUKUS | Australia–United Kingdom–United States security partnership |
| CCP | Chinese Communist Party |
| CSF | Cyberspace Force |
| GDP | Gross domestic product |
| GLCM | Ground-launched cruise missile |
| IISS | International Institute for Strategic Studies |
| IRBM | Intermediate-range ballistic missile |
| LACM | Land-attack cruise missile |
| LHD | Landing helicopter dock |
| MRBM | Medium-range ballistic missile |
| MRTT | Multi-role tanker/transport |
| PLA | People’s Liberation Army |
| PLAAF | People’s Liberation Army Air Force |
| PLAN | People’s Liberation Army Navy |
| PLARF | People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force |
| PRC | People’s Republic of China |
| SRBM | Short-range ballistic missile |
| SSBN | Ballistic missile submarine (nuclear-powered) |
| SSF | Strategic Support Force |
| SSK | Diesel-electric attack submarine |
| SSN | Nuclear-powered attack submarine |
| VLS | Vertical launch system |
About the authors
Sam Roggeveen
Sam Roggeveen is Program Director of the Lowy Institute’s International Security Program. He is the author of The Echidna Strategy: Australia's Search for Power and Peace (Opens in new window), published by La Trobe University Press in 2023.
David Vallance
David Vallance is a Research Associate in the International Security Program at the Lowy Institute.
