Marles seeks to cool tensions with Beijing following ‘frank’ discussions with Chinese defence minister

The Australian defence minister has struck a non-confrontational tone despite increasing friction with China.

Australia needs “the most productive relationship” with China, Defence Minister Richard Marles has said, striking a cooperative tone a day after his first face-to-face meeting with his Chinese counterpart.

Speaking from a security summit in Singapore on Sunday, Mr Marles signalled that the Albanese government was making further efforts to stabilise its relationship with China, despite increasing friction between the two countries.

“The substantive issue that we wanted to pursue with the Chinese, having raised a range of issues with them, was to see the progress of our defence dialogue continues,” Mr Marles said from the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual gathering of security and defence officials hosted by the London-based think tank the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

The defence minister raised recent confrontations against the Australian navy carried out by the People’s Liberation Army. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

“That’s so that we can have the deepest understanding of each other’s behaviours.”

The appearance followed a 45-minute meeting between Mr Marles and Chinese Defence Minister Admiral Dong Jun, who was appointed to the role in December.

Describing the meeting as a “very frank conversation”, Mr Marles said he had directly raised the “unsafe and unprofessional” tactics employed by the People’s Liberation Army against the Australian navy – the first time the issue had been raised at a ministerial level.

In November, Australian navy divers were injured after sonar pulses deployed by a Chinese warship. Earlier this year, personnel on-board an Australian navy helicopter were also put in harm’s way when a Chinese jet detonated flares nearby, however no one was injured in that incident.

“Obviously, we have seen some unsafe incidents – incidents which were both unsafe and unprofessional,” Mr Marles said. “I obviously raised them with Minister Jun.”

Previously, Beijing has disputed Australia’s characterisations of the incidents, and blamed Australia for causing the disputes.

China's Defence Minister Dong Jun spoke to Richard Marles on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue summit in Singapore. Picture: AFP / Nhac Nguyen.

Despite raising the incidents, the pair reaffirmed to hold direct lines of communication between their two militaries open, part of a broader effort to preserve a recent rapprochement between Australia and China.

“Having a dialogue of that kind in place, allows us to have a much better understanding of what we’re doing and creates much greater safety for the men and women who wear a uniform,” Mr Marles said.

“One of the things that we need to be doing in our relationship with China … is to be speaking with clarity and to make sure that we are disagreeing when we must.”

Rejecting Coalition criticism that Labor should have contacted the Chinese leadership earlier, Mr Marles said “there was no phone when the Liberals were in power”.

“They had absolutely no ability to communicate with China at all about anything, even in respect of giving a difficult message,” he said.

“The fact that we have a relationship now not only allows us to co-operate, but it does allow us to be able to say difficult things in a respectful way.”

But in response, Coalition frontbencher James Paterson renewed the opposition’s attacks on Mr Marles, accusing the defence minister of the “absolute, bare minimum” when confronting China over its conduct.

“If Richard Marles believes that the previous government didn’t show sufficient respect to the Chinese government, he should specify exactly what he means by that,” Senator Patterson told Sky News on Sunday.

“Was it calling out China’s vital difference in our democracy? Was it calling out Chinese malign conduct in the South China Sea? Was a calling out horrific human rights abuses in China? He should say which one of those things didn’t show special respect to the Chinese government.”

. Picture: Supplied.

Prior to meeting with Admiral Dong, Mr Marles told the summit that security in the Indo-Pacific needed China to take on a key leadership role, however this relied on it having regard for the international rules and recognising the sovereignty of its neighbours.

“Confidence – and indeed trust – in Chinese leadership will be the single most important ingredient to the maintenance of the global rules-based order. And by extension, it will be at the heart of building a stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific region,” Mr Marles said.

Following the speech, however, Mr Marles comments were rebuked by PLA officers who argued China was co-operating with neighbouring states and abided by the rule of law.

Consistent with a recent resumption of high-level minister meetings by Beijing after Labor came to office in 2022, Chinese Premier Li Qiang will meet with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Canberra in a fortnight’s time.

Also indicating a further easing in diplomatic tensions was Beijing’s moves to lift import bans on all but two of Australia’s beef exporters on Thursday. A abolition of the remaining trade sanctions on Australian lobster is expected in coming weeks.