Ships’ presence off east coast follows incident in South China Sea in which a Chinese fighter jet released flares in front of Australian military plane
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Australia will “watch every move” of three Chinese warships which have been detected off the country’s east coast, the defence minister has said.
Three People’s Liberation Army-Navy vessels – the Jiangkai-class frigate Hengyang, the Renhai-class cruiser Zunyi and the Fuchi-class replenishment vessel Weishanhu – were detected off north-east Queensland last week and have been surveilled since as they have sailed south. The Financial Times reported the ships were about 150 nautical miles off the coast of Sydney.
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