This is CBSI on the world. I'm John Batchel. To the Pacific, South Pacific between New Zealand and Australia,

suddenly an unannounced live fire exercise by two PLA Navy warships accompanied by a supply ship. New Zealand sent a patrol out.

Australia sent a patrol out to shadow, but there were airliners that had to divert traffic

because of the unannounced live fire episode. Significance? Yes. I go to Cleo Pascal, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy,

writing about this and other incidents in the vast Indo-Pacific, Oceania, and China's ambitions,

evidence not just in wolf warrior rudeness or money being spread around when there is a parliamentary election,

but also showing guns, guns out, big guns out, in waters that heretofore have not been

considered within the PLA Navy's reach.

Cleo, a very good evening to you.

What did that moment mean to the rest of the islands that are in contention between Beijing and Taiwan and the United States?

Good evening to you.

Good evening.

Well, it makes it a lot harder to pretend that there isn't a military, a kinetic warfare component

to the Chinese engagement in the region. And it's a, it's yet another. So what are you going to do

about it moment? Right. So here they are. They're shooting off their weapons in the Tasman Sea.

And what did Australia and New Zealand do about it?

You know, all the things that we've been speaking about for the past few years,

the political warfare across the Pacific Islands has been to soften up the region

in order for the PRC and ultimately the PLA to be in a position

to do whatever it wants. And while this, while the shooting was the testing was incredibly important,

within the same week, the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands was in China signing a strategic

agreement with China. So the political warfare continues, but from a Beijing perspective,

...