The growing global threat posed by China and Russia is behind Australia’s presence at this week’s North Atlantic Treaty Organisation security summit in Madrid and is part of an intensifying effort to range as many nations as possible against those countries, officials said.

With Anthony Albanese and the leaders of other non-NATO nations Japan, South Korea and New Zealand all invited to the summit, a NATO official said the Europe-based organisation viewed China as a “challenge” rather than an “adversary”.