Some MSM site: At 9.58am, the Virgin pilot notified Australian air traffic control that he had picked up a Chinese transmission on an international guard (warning) channel, stating that live ammunition was being used in his vicinity.

That would have been an interesting cockpit announcement for the passengers to hear.

The backstory is that CCP war ships have navigated their way though international waters, which are as thin as the Taiwan Strait in terms of closeness to Australian land at some northern points - then dwelt around 70km off of the coast of Sydney. They're now conducting live-fire drills between NZ & Aus.

That's provocative, but legal according to international practice. They're all doing it. I'm sure CCP has no trouble justifying that as a retaliatory tactic.

The strange bit is though, no-one appears to have been notified that firing had commenced - in a busy flight route. Not by Aus Gov anyway - first they heard was from a Chinese transmission.

The Albo gov are terrified to say anything that might be even vaguely offensive to Totalitarianism. Either they're covering up for the CCP again so as not to harm our shameful dependence on them, for everything ... or they really don't have any idea what's going on. Being treated by CCP with the disdain they deserve.

Australia is a long way from Taiwan, but a lot closer than America. At the very least it would be a critical supply chain inflection point.

It's, as with all CCP globo-positioning, an incremental brewing story.