"So the second biggest economic power with the second biggest...

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    "So the second biggest economic power with the second biggest military spending couldn't subdue Australia, if they set their mind to it?"

    Correct.

    If you want to project power across oceans, you need a genuine blue water navy. China's PLAN is not even close; they have exactly one functioning aircraft carrier, and another one that is mainly used for training. Most of their navy is diesel powered which means they will struggle to move very far from their coast- and when they do, they need attendant fleet replenishment ships which will be the number one target for any interested adversary. Lose those and you are history.

    You're not going to have a hope in hell of invading Australia without air support. The Chinese carrier would be sent to the bottom of the ocean by the RAAF after which the Australia military would have total and complete air superiority. Any Chinese warship unfortunate enough to be in Australian waters would be an absolute sitting duck.

    To even get here, the invasion fleet would have to sail more than 4,000km to even get to Darwin- and they would be under continuous surveillance from the moment they leave the dock. And if they do manage- with the most ridiculous luck- to land and take Darwin, then what? It's more than 3,000 kilometers of distance to pretty much any other population centre. What shape do you think their military are gonna be in after slogging more than 3,000km across the desert?

    This entire discussion is simply ridiculous. I haven't even included any of our allies in this discussion because quite frankly, China can't even invade us even if we did the whole thing ourselves. They would struggle to invade Taiwan and they're barely 100km away across a ditch. Think they're gonna threaten Australia?

    Hilarious.
 
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