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China set off alarm bells in New Zealand when it dispatched powerful warships on unprecedented missions in the South Pacific without explanation, according to military documents obtained by AFP.

Beijing has spent years expanding its reach in the southern Pacific Ocean, courting island nations with new hospitals, freshly paved roads and generous offers of climate aid.

But these diplomatic efforts have increasingly been accompanied by more overt displays of military power.

Three Chinese warships sailed the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand in February this year, the first time such a task group had been sighted in those waters.

“We have never seen vessels with this capability so close to our shores – ships equipped for air, land and sea warfare,” New Zealand Defence Force officials wrote in briefings released under freedom of information laws.

The flotilla included a Renhai-class destroyer, one of the most advanced warships in the world and China’s “most capable surface combatant”, according to the documents.

It was only the second time a Renhai-class destroyer – first commissioned in 2020 – had been seen in the South Pacific, New Zealand defence officials noted.

The first foray came just months earlier, in October 2024, when a Renhai-class ship docked in Pacific island nation Vanuatu.

“We have not been informed by the Chinese Government why this task group has been deployed into our region,” read a New Zealand Defence Force briefing from February.

“And we have not been informed what its future plans are.”

‘Didn’t come to see the penguins’

Escorted by a supply tanker and a smaller naval frigate, the Renhai-class destroyer Zunyi was spotted off the eastern coast of Australia in mid-February.

“We have, in an unprecedented way, put in place assets to shadow the task group so that we know exactly what’s happening,” Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles said at the time.

Australia and New Zealand were caught off guard when the Zunyi started live-fire drills underneath a busy flight path in the Tasman Sea, forcing dozens of commercial planes to change course.

While both Canberra and Wellington stressed the task group was within the bounds of international law, they were unhappy about its conduct.

“We have concerns about the manner in which the task group notified its intention to conduct live fire exercises, which we do not consider meets best practice,” New Zealand officials wrote.

At several points during its voyage, the Chinese task group entered Australia’s exclusive economic zone, according to a separate batch of documents released by Canberra.

Australia’s Office of National Intelligence said this year it was the “furthest south a People’s Liberation Army-Navy task group has operated”.

Foreign policy expert David Capie said the presence of the Chinese naval task group was “unprecedented” – and clearly designed to send a message.

“The idea they could hold a military exercise, even a fairly routine one, was startling to a lot of New Zealanders,” said Capie, the director of the Centre for Strategic Studies at Wellington’s Victoria University.

“They didn’t come this far south to see the penguins.”

China not sorry

Capie said it also served as a pointed rebuke to Australia and New Zealand, which regularly join patrols in contested parts of the South China Sea that Beijing has tried to claim.

“This is a reminder that two can play at that game.”

China sent shivers through the South Pacific in September 2024, when it test-fired a nuclear-capable missile into the high seas near French Polynesia.

It was China’s first long-range missile launch over international waters in more than 40 years.

Beijing has shrugged off both the naval exercises and the missile test as nothing more than routine military manoeuvres.

“I don’t see there’s any reason why the Chinese side should feel sorry about that, or even to think about apologising for that,” China’s ambassador to Australia said in February, speaking about the ships.

“As a major power in this region... it is normal for China to send vessels to different parts of the region to conduct various types of activities,” ambassador Xiao Qian told national broadcaster ABC.

China’s New Zealand embassy did not reply to a request for comment.

-Agence France-Presse