‘Australia is going to be targeted’: How China would bring the country to its knees with devastating attacks on our cities: Navy officer’s chilling warning

Australia would face devastating attacks on its cities and onshore infrastructure if an increasingly likely war with China broke out, a leading military analyst has claimed.  

Jennifer Parker, a former naval officer and expert associate at the Australian National University, warned that conflict in the Indo-Pacific would likely reach Australian soil if it ever breaks out.

‘This is what Australians need to grapple with… we’ve gotten into this viewpoint that war is something where we’ve seen people to the other side of the world to fight as part of somebody else’s operation,’ she told the Daily Mail. 

‘That is not what an Indo-Pacific conflict looks like. An Indo-Pacific conflict looks like fighting from Australia,’ she said. ‘That means that Australia is going to be targeted.’

Parker said there were many potential flashpoints for a conflict involving China and Australia, including territorial disputes in the South China Sea and an attempted reunification with Taiwan. 

‘Xi Jinping has said a number of times, in number of different forms, that he sees Taiwan as an inalienable part of China,’ she said. 

‘He sees the reunification of Taiwan as a core interest.

‘In the event of a military attack and invasion, I think that we would have a regional conflict on our hands instantly.’

Parker said China would likely target surrounding nations including Japan, the Philippines and even Guam if it launched an invasion of Taiwan, forcing Australia to defend its allies. 

‘So in that scenario, I think Australia would have to be involved.’

China’s hypersonic missiles are said to be capable of striking military bases or naval assets within minutes, travelling at more than five times the speed of sound and manoeuvring mid-flight to evade missile defences.

Parker said Australia’s north would be the most exposed if China ever decided to strike.

‘If it’s a land based missile, then, with the exception of a new missile they’re developing… it is probably only northern Australia that would be attacked,’ she said. 

‘They do have a missile called the DF 27 that could technically hit Sydney. It’s not clear how effective it is, but you could also target the southern parts of Australia with missiles from aircraft, submarines and ships.’

The warning comes after the Australian government announced last year it would spend up to $18billion upgrading military bases across the country’s north to counter the threat of China. 

The five bases, stretching from Western Australia to Queensland, would likely form the ‘front line’ of a conflict, chosen for their proximity to the South China Sea. 

It came after a strategic review found Australia’s geographic isolation was no longer a significant defensive advantage due to advancements in long-range warfare. 

The Defence Strategic Review concluded Australia found itself in the ‘most challenging strategic circumstances since World War II’.  

Despite the investment, Parker said Australia’s defences remained dangerously inadequate.

‘We have a range of significant weaknesses. I would say that the state of our navy capability right now is a huge issue,’ Parker said.

‘Our current ships and submarines, with the exception of their Hobart-class destroyers and LHDs were all commissioned in the 90s, early 2000s. They should be getting replaced. Although there are plans in place, this won’t start til the 2029-2030s’. 

‘As an island nation, we know land borders, our biggest vulnerability is the maritime domain… because we import everything, and so you don’t have to actually set a foot on Australia, or lob a missile in Australia to make Australia capitulate.

‘All you would have to do is intercept our fuel, our ammunition, our fertiliser, or other critical seaborne supply all of those things across the maritime domain.’

Parker said Australia’s missile defence capacity was equally underdeveloped.

Parker described northern military bases as the country’s ‘first line of defence’ but warned southern sites could also be hit.

‘They will be targeted,’ she said. ‘We shouldn’t underestimate the importance of protecting infrastructure to the south as well.’

She said China’s long-term military build-up had made it a formidable global power.

‘They’ve been modernizing their military for the last 30 years,’ Parker said. 

‘They’ve always had a big military, but what has changed is the shift in towards the focus of that military, so focusing more on a rocket force, and they have rapidly developed a large range and breadth of different types of ballistic, cruise and hypersonic missiles.’

China is also rapidly investing in nuclear weapons and delivery systems as well as substantially expanding their naval force. 

‘They’ve had a lot of ships historically, but they were generally coastal ships and not great ones,’ she said. ‘Now they have some of the most modern in the world’.

‘In fact, they have over 370 battle force ships, so fighting ships. Out of those 370, about 70 per cent were built in the last ten years.

‘And that’s just a taste of the capabilities that China has. They are a very formidable force.’