Ships’ presence off east coast follows incident in South China Sea in which a Chinese fighter jet released flares in front of Australian military plane

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Australia will “watch every move” of three Chinese warships which have been detected 150 nautical miles off Sydney, on Australia’s east coast, the defence minister has said.

Three People’s Liberation Army-Navy vessels – the Jiangkai-class frigate Hengyang, the Renhai-class cruiser Zunyi and the Fuchi-class replenishment vessel Weishanhu – were detected off north-east Queensland last week and have been surveilled since as they have sailed south.

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