Australian Ministry of Defence: At present, the Malabar military exercise is going on between the Quad countries member India, Japan, Australia, and the US. China is nervous about this exercise. In such a situation, China has deployed hundreds of its low-orbit satellites to monitor the Malabar exercise over Australia.
ABC News, citing commercial space data, reported continuous surveillance near Australia during the Talisman Saber exercise from July 22 to August 4 and now the Malabar exercise. During this time the entire focus was on the warships near Sydney Port.
James Bennett of EOS Space Systems defense company said the Malabar exercise was surveyed through 300 satellites and 3,000 flights for ground-based activity. Meanwhile, Australia’s Department of Defense is taking the necessary steps to protect information on its own and other countries’ warships from Chinese surveillance. Along with this, the satellites of China are also being constantly monitored.
China has already monitored the Malabar exercise. In 2007, it sent a spy ship to monitor maneuvers in the Indian Ocean. After this, in 2014 also a similar ship was sent to the Bay of Bengal.
This year, INS Kolkata and Sahyadri have been sent from India in Malabar Exercise. The Malabar exercise, which began on August 11, is scheduled to continue till August 21. This exercise is being done in two phases. The first will be the Harbor Phase and the second will be the Sea Phase.