This is John Batcher, conversation with Gregory Coppley, who's in Perth, Australia for

Defense and Foreign Affairs, about the defense of the Pacific from the Chinese presumed onslaught to launch on Taiwan. It includes the

Second Island Chain. And included in the Second Island Chain by looking at a map are two possessions of Australia, Cocos Island and Christmas Island,

the one in the Indo-Pacific, which allow Australia to have a range into the South China Sea.

The Air Force assets are now planning on secondary and tertiary fields after day one of the Chinese onslaught.

Australia is also providing lots of backup and logistics for the Air Forces as they contest with the Chinese Navy and the

Chinese Air Force. Cocos Island and Christmas Island provide access to logistics that Australia can base there and

defend south of Indonesia. Preparing for the next war is the way to maintain the

peace is the long-winded version of why.

Here's Gregory Kapley on Australia's preparation.

More of this tonight.

Well, I'm not sure whether they fit in either the first or second island chain, but

they're Australian island outposts which are literally just south of Indonesia, the Sumatra and Java main islands of Indonesia,

and they give Australia a certain right and a certain capacity to project power,

maritime power and air power up into the South China Sea across Indonesia should that be required.

These are, when Australia has a lot of interest in the Indian Ocean,

which are not generally talked about, but which are regularly patrolled the Ashmore and

Cartier reef and so on which and by the way the big threat in these areas is

illegal fishing some of it's done by the Chinese but most of it's done by the Chinese, but most of it's done by the Indonesians themselves.

So it's going to be very interesting, not just with the Cocos Koeling Group and the Christmas Island, but throughout that area and including Papua New Guinea,

which is the eastern half of the island of New Guinea, or Papua, which is being courted by the US, which has got a big defense

agreement with it. Australia has an even bigger national security agreement with Papua New

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