This handout {photograph} exhibits the Chinese language Folks’s Liberation Military Rocket Power launching an intercontinental ballistic missile carrying a dummy warhead into the Pacific Ocean, at an undisclosed location. Picture: HANDOUT / Chinese language Folks’s Liberation Military Information and Communication Middle / AFP
China is able to a direct missile strike on Australia and the risk is rising as Beijing amasses long-range and hypersonic weapons and builds islands within the South China Sea, an Australian suppose tank mentioned on Sunday (June 14, 2026).
A Lowy Institute report discovered the principle risk to Australia was from Chinese language missiles fired from ships, submarines and a brand new intermediate-range ballistic missile that would attain the island continent from China.
China’s capability to strike Australia would develop over the following decade as “the DF-27 intermediate-range ballistic missile, and probably a conventionally armed intercontinental ballistic missile, develop in service numbers”, it mentioned.
The DF-27 missile has a spread of 5,000 to eight,000 kilometres (3,000 to five,000 miles), the U.S. navy mentioned in December.
The direct navy risk posed to Australia was not effectively understood by the general public, the report mentioned, including that it was assessing Beijing’s functionality and never its intentions.
Sam Roggeveen, the director of the Lowy Institute’s Worldwide Safety Program, advised AFP the report was “neither hawkish nor dovish, neither alarmist nor complacent”.
“I believe the expansion of the Folks’s Liberation Military is an important factor to occur to Australian safety for the reason that collapse of the Soviet Union, and there’s a urgent want for a extra knowledgeable Australian dialogue about it,” he mentioned.
Australia reshaped its navy technique three years in the past in response to China’s fast navy build-up and rising friction between Beijing and Washington, specializing in deterring an adversary from its northern approaches.
Nevertheless, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s authorities has been reluctant to speak in regards to the potential for a direct assault on the Australian mainland.
Though China’s means to sever undersea communications cables, cyber assaults and interdicting maritime commerce are the first threat for Australia, “the direct strike risk is actual and rising”, the report mentioned.
The Dong Feng-26 intermediate-range ballistic missile might attain northern Australia if deployed from considered one of Beijing’s artificially constructed islands within the South China Sea, it mentioned.
The risk to Australia would “dramatically escalate” if China fielded a crewed or drone long-range bomber, or deployed bombers or missiles on Pacific islands near Australia.
Australia has been locked in competitors with China to cement safety ties with South Pacific nations, in search of to stop Beijing from gaining a base.
Revealed – June 14, 2026 10:23 pm IST