Beijing has issued a warning to Australia that applies to all those who dare oppose Chinese military might in international waters it refers to as “the far sea”: Get used to it.

A headline in the English-language Global Times, a state paper that reflects the official government and ruling party line, reads, “China is moving toward the far sea, and Western countries should adapt.” That’s China’s indignant response to the uproar in Australia as well as New Zealand following a week of exercises staged by three Chinese warships on the Tasman Sea 150 miles southeast of Sydney.

The executive director of the Asia Pacific Studies Centre, East China Normal University, Chen Hong, argued that the Chinese navy’s “expansion into distant seas to fulfill its sacred duties of safeguarding peace, protecting national interests, and ensuring the security of maritime routes has become routine.” He claimed that “the international community is gradually becoming accustomed to and accepting this development, with many welcoming China’s efforts to ensure safety in international waters.”

Mr. Chen did not single out any foreign countries as accepting, much less welcoming, China’s expansionism, a cause for alarm from the southern Pacific to countries near China’s east coast, including the Philippines and the Korean peninsula. The U.S. Naval Institute has predicted that the Chinese navy — formally known as “the People’s Liberation Army Navy” — will have 400 ships this year.

“China is building more modern surface combatants and expanding its aircraft carrier and logistics force to grow its naval influence further from shore,” Mr. Chen said. The emphasis, a Pentagon report cited by USNI News said, will be on building “an increasingly modern and flexible force that has focused on replacing its previous generations of platforms that had limited capabilities in favor of larger, modern multi-role combatants.”

The three Chinese ships sent to the Tasman Sea reflected Chinese naval expansionism beyond the relatively close waters off China’s eastern and southern coasts. Chinese warships, seldom far from the Chinese mainland, frequently surround the independent island province of Taiwan and are a constant presence in the South China Sea, which China claims as its own.

American planes and warships challenge the Chinese claim to the South China Sea, often together with Filipino forces. A French nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the Charles de Gaulle, drilled with Philippine vessels in those waters last weekend. 

The Philippine defense minister, Gilberto Teodoro, said Japan, which seized the Philippines from American forces in World War II, will also join in “attempts by China and other countries to change the international order and the narrative.”

Mr. Chen in his report on the heated responses to the exercise in the Tasman Sea said that Australia and New Zealand had monitored the Chinese fleet and that its ships had adhered “to safe, standardized, and professional protocols”

“Some Western media have seized this opportunity to propagate the ‘China threat’ narrative, cautioning against China’s naval activities,” he wrote, implying the decision to stage war games relatively close to Australia was in retaliation for the Aussies sending “warships and aircraft to provoke activities in China’s East China Sea, Taiwan Straits, South China Sea, and other areas.” 

For many years, Australia has participated in the U.S. strategy against China, he wrote. “Australia acts as an accomplice in the US’ anti-China strategy, repeatedly violating China’s territorial waters and airspace.”

A spokesman for the opposition to Australia’s prime minister, Anthony Albanese, accused China of using “gunboat diplomacy to test U.S. allies like Australia.”