CEBU, Philippines — Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles said Thursday that China’s military build-up was creating a “condition of pressure” in Southeast Asia, and urged allies and partners to deepen cooperation.
Beijing deploys hundreds of coast guard, navy and other vessels to patrol disputed areas of the South China Sea, which it claims almost entirely despite an international ruling that its position has no legal basis.
In July, Australia protested China’s test of a nuclear-capable missile in the South Pacific, calling the launch “destabilizing.”
“We’re obviously seeing the biggest conventional military build-up that the world has seen since the end of the Second World War from China,” Marles told reporters Thursday on the sidelines of a meeting of Southeast Asian defense ministers in the Philippines.
“There’s not an explanation from China as to why it’s doing this, and all of that is creating the condition of pressure.”
Beijing’s growing assertiveness was “providing challenges” for Canberra, he added, saying Australia relied on maintaining the existing rules-based order.
“We need to be ensuring that how we understand the rules of the road continue to apply, because for a middle power like Australia, it is actually the rules which give us agency,” he said
China’s growing assertiveness and militarization of artificial islands in the South China Sea have spurred Canberra, as well as Washington, to deepen defense cooperation with some Southeast Asian countries.
Marles said Thursday that he met with the “Squad,” an informal defense and security group composed of Australia, Japan, the United States and the Philippines, where they committed to greater defense policy coordination.
“I think the challenges that are being faced in this part of the world and the pressures that are being experienced are well understood by all four countries,” he said.
“Now is a time to double down on friends and to double down on neighbors and to be working more closely together to provide for our collective security,” he added.
The Philippines, a close security partner of Australia, has been engaged in years of confrontations with China in the South China Sea.
China’s military and coast guard presence in contested areas of the critical waterway nearly doubled in September, Manila said earlier this month.
