SYDNEY – China is capable of a direct missile strike on Australia, and the threat is growing as Beijing amasses long-range and hypersonic weapons and builds islands in the South China Sea, an Australian think-tank said on June 14.A Lowy Institute report found the main threat to Australia was from Chinese missiles fired from ships and submarines, and a new intermediate-range ballistic missile that could reach the island continent from China.China’s capacity to strike Australia would grow over the next decade as “the DF-27 intermediate-range ballistic missile, and potentially a conventionally armed intercontinental ballistic missile, grow in service numbers”, it…