
U.S. sailors man the rails aboard USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63) sails the Sydney Opera House while pulling into Sydney, Australia in 2005. US Navy Photo
Australia’s 2016 Defense White Paper expresses concern over “friction” in the South China Sea (SCS) arising from U.S.-Chinese naval interactions, and it worries that territorial disputes have created “uncertainty and tension.” Those statements, which show Canberra (like the rest of the states in the Indo-Pacific region) is slowly coming around to the gathering threat posed by China to freedom of the seas. Read More