The chief of Australia's defence force has revealed Chinese warships came within 10km of the country's waters last year to display military capabilities.
During Senate Estimates on Wednesday, Admiral David Johnston said the ADF had monitored the ships in the Pacific during November.
The flotilla came to the edge of Australia's exclusive economic zone, which is about 400km north-east of the Queensland coast in the Philippine Sea.
Within this maritime area, Australia has sovereign rights to explore, manage, and conserve natural resources and retains jurisdiction over these waters.
Admiral Johnston said the Chinese warships were not only executing a training exercise but were also providing an opportunity for the navy of the People's Liberation Army to flex its capabilities just 8km to 10km from the zone.
'It's a demonstration of its ability to operate much further from China's shores than it has routinely done,' he told Liberal Senator Jessica Collins during the hearing.
'It unquestionably is demonstrating to our region that the Chinese navy is capable of deploying.
'We judge the nature of its activities was both for internal training purposes as well as signalling to Australia and our region the capacity the Chinese military has.
The Chinese frigate Hengyang was among the flotilla detected off Australia in November 2025.
Chief of the Australian Defence Force Admiral David Johnston (pictured) said China was showing its military strength by sending warships near Australian waters.
'It moved through a number of Pacific islands and then turned north, just outside of our 200-mile zone.'
The Chinese flotilla included a frigate, a cruiser, a refuelling ship and a landing helicopter dock.
The ADF's admission prompted the federal opposition to call on the Labor government to be more upfront about Australia's strategic position.
'The government never told the Australian public that, for the second time in a year, a Chinese battlegroup has come within striking distance of our coast,' Senator Collins told ABC News.
'Anthony Albanese must be honest with Australians about our deteriorating strategic circumstances.'
Only 10 months before the sighting, in February 2025, a separate group of Chinese ships circumnavigated Australia and started live-fire exercises in the Tasman Sea.
The event only came to light when an Emirates pilot was directly warned by Chinese military authorities to change course and avoid the airspace during a flight from Sydney to Christchurch.
However, in the case of the warships in November, Admiral Johnston confirmed they did not conduct live fire exercises as they sailed through the Pacific islands.
A Chinese naval ship was spotted in the Tasman Sea last year about 350 nautical miles northeast of Australia's Bass Strait.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has not been afraid to show off his military.
'We had our own aircraft deployed into the Western Pacific, but a combination of means that enabled us to have an understanding of what the task groups' movements were,' he said.
'We worked with a number of our near neighbours based on both what information they were seeing and contributing our own understanding of it.'
'There was strong interest from our Pacific partners on what the task group was doing while it was conducting its deployment.'
Former naval officer, and now associate at ANU's National Security College, Jennifer Parker, played down the Chinese threat to Australia's east coast.
But she said the government needed to be cautious about the emerging superpower's motives.
'Navies routinely deploy globally, but they rarely do so without purpose,' she told the ABC.
'In peacetime, deployments that are not tied to port visits or major exercises are often designed to demonstrate capability.'
The Chinese ships did not move into Australia's exclusive economic zone even though they were entitled to, but Ms Parker said this may have been deliberate.
'That suggests a calibrated approach, demonstrating capability while avoiding the kind of public backlash seen earlier this year, which strengthened domestic support for enhanced defence capability,' she added.