Shangri-La Dialogue: Australia pushes China for ‘strategic explanation’ of military build-up
- Australia’s Defence Minister Richard Marles also made comments that projected the Aukus alliance as a transparent initiative
- Marles met Chinese Defence Minister General Li Shangfu on the sidelines of the summit, discussing resumed ministerial talks as part of efforts to stabilise bilateral relations
Australia has continued to push China for more transparency on its military expansion, saying that China needed to offer a “strategic explanation”.
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“There is a very significant build-up that we are seeing with China, in terms of military. It’s the lack of a strategic explanation for what that’s for and what that is about,” Marles said at the final plenary.
“If you want the standard – others can judge when we meet the standard – but what we seek to do is to aspire to a standard where we make clear to the region and the world what we are about in terms of the capabilities that we have and why we’re developing them.
“I guess that’s what we would seek from others.”
But he did not respond on which aspects of China’s military expansion were troubling.
