Australian Prime Minister John Howard, blasted last week for "meddling" in China's affairs, tried yesterday to patch up differences with Beijing after it emerged a Chinese warship had challenged an Australian naval flotilla for "intruding."
Three Australian warships were asked to leave the Taiwan Strait by the Chinese captain, who accused the Australians of breaching China's 12-nautical mile (22.2km) territorial zone.
But the Australian flotilla, steaming from Pusan in South Korea to Hong Kong, refused to change direction and continued through the Strait.
The incident occurred just days after a Chinese fighter jet collided with a US spy plane on April 1, sparking a standoff over the fate of the American crew who were detained after making an emergency landing on Hainan island.
Immediately after that collision, China launched a propaganda campaign against foreign military activity within its 320km "economic exclusion zone." Nations have wide-ranging economic rights over the marine resources in such zones, but they are not sovereign territory.
"I don't think we should attach any new significance to what China has done, we have to keep it in perspective," Howard told reporters.
"We won't be over-reacting to it ... it is important ... to look at the totality of the relationship and see everything in proper perspective.
"There has been a long-standing difference between China's interpretation of what international law allows in these circumstances and what other countries interpret international law to allow.
"All the Australian vessels were conducting themselves quite properly and fully in accordance with international law."
Defense sources said the decision to send the ships through the area so soon after the US spy plane incident might have been regarded as provocative but the government had no intention of canceling the mission.
Howard incurred Beijing's wrath last week over his support of the US' stance on Taiwan.
US President George W. Bush created a storm over an arms sale to Taiwan and a promise to back Taiwan in any military conflict with China.
Howard brought Australia into the furore by saying he thought Bush understood regional tensions, prompting the Chinese embassy in Canberra to label his comments inappropriate and unhelpful.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer's office denied the incident was a problem for relations between the two countries.
"Our position is our ships were exercising their rights under the international law of the sea which provides that foreign vessels can pass through another country's territorial waters, under the right of innocent passage, as it's described," a spokesman said.
"We don't see it as being a problem. You have to look at these things in the totality of the relationship we have with China."
Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock also held out an olive branch to Beijing when he said he hoped China would continue to cooperate in combating people-smuggling despite the recent tensions.
"We've developed with China a very good relationship in relation to dealing with people who come unlawfully and have no entitlement to be [in Australia] and being able to return them," Ruddock told Channel Nine TV.
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