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Soryu-class submarine arrives in SydneySoryu-class submarine arrives in Sydney
About the author
Sam Roggeveen
Sam Roggeveen is Program Director of the Lowy Institute’s International Security Program. He is the author of The Echidna Strategy: Australia's Search for Power and Peace (Opens in new window), published by La Trobe University Press in 2023.
My colleague Euan Graham snapped these grainy shots of the Japanese Soryu-class submarine SS-503 Hakuryu from the ferry as he made his way to the office earlier today. As Euan points out on Twitter, this is history in the making — the first Japanese submarine to pass through Sydney Heads since the Second World War.
Various functions will be held over coming days to mark the visit of the submarine and other Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force ships, but it is interesting that the Government and the Royal Australian Navy seem to have made little of the arrival today. Could it have anything to do with the fact that the PM is in Beijing?
Sam Roggeveen