Penny Wong to deliver blunt message on China’s military operations at Defending Australia summit

Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong will today condemn China over a series of “unsafe, unprofessional and unacceptable incidents” by its navy. Read her full speech.

• China’s ‘negative’ AUKUS reaction

Large-scale Chinese military operations are sparking a growing risk of escalating into accidents and conflict, warns Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong.

In a stark national security message, Senator Wong directly singles out China and condemns a series of “unsafe, unprofessional and unacceptable incidents” by its navy.

She will deliver a wide-ranging assessment of the world’s trouble spots to News Corp Australia’s Defending Australia summit in Canberra on Tuesday, warning that protecting the nation has “become a far more challenging task” in the most complex strategic environment since WWII.

Premier Peter Malinauskas will deliver the keynote address, in which he will challenge the eastern states to embrace the critical national security enterprise of building AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines in Adelaide as part of a $368bn project.

In her video message, Senator Wong says Australia wants to stabilise relations with China to “better advance our interests and navigate our differences”.

“We have seen large-scale Chinese military operations in the Taiwan Strait becoming a routine event. The Risk of an accident, and potential escalation, is growing,” she says.

“Advancing our interests requires engagement. Engagement is not concession. So Australia is working to build momentum for dialogue and preventive architecture to reduce the risks of escalation, miscalculation and catastrophic conflict.”

Chinese warships and fighter jets encircled Taiwan for two days of drills that ended on Saturday, which China said were a test of its ability to seize the island.

Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong (right) with Australian journalist Cheng Lei in October, after China released Lei after more than three years in detention. Picture: Sarah Hodges / Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade / AFP

A Chinese defence ministry spokesman said the newly installed Taiwanese president’s inaugural address amounted to calls for independence that were “pushing our compatriots in Taiwan into a perilous situation of war and danger”.

Senator Wong’s blunt strategic message is part of an introduction to Defending Australia panel host Cheng Lei, who she says has “inspired me with her wisdom and strength of character” after being detained by Chinese authorities from 2020-23.

Senator Wong warns of the costs of conflict, saying they are “front of mind for all of us today” and underpin Australia’s steadfast support of Ukraine.

“Russia’s illegal and immoral invasion of Ukraine renders stark our interest in living in a region where no country dominates, and no country is dominated,” she says.

Senator Wong praises Ukraine ambassador Vasyl Myroshnychenko, another Defending Australia panellist, as “a powerful advocate for his people” in their heroic fight for their homeland.

But she reiterates support for at two-state solution – “a Palestinian state alongside the state of Israel” – saying this is the only path to “a secure and prosperous future for both Israelis and Palestinians”.

Liberal Senator and former Australian Ambassador to Israel Dave Sharma, another Defending Australia panellist, said Australia needed to do more to defend the rules-based global order that had underwritten peace and prosperity for the past 80 years.

“I will be particularly critical about lack of meaningful support to Ukraine in their efforts to resist Russian aggression, but also a lack of full-throated support for Israel to exercise its right to self defence and our kind of complicity in attempts to create a moral equivalence between Hamas, a listed terrorist organisation, and Israel, a liberal democratic state that’s always fighting for survival in the Middle East,” he said.

Senator Sharma also branded as weak Australia’s response to Chinese military incidents involving Australian personnel – the latest a Chinese fighter aircraft in May dropping flares in front of an Australian navy helicopter in international waters.

“I think we need to speak consistently, clearly and resolutely about all these incidents, because if we allow them to go unanswered, it is creating an effective licence for them to continue,” he said.

Senator Wong also uses her Defending Australia introduction to expand her argument about the challenging task facing the nation in extraordinarily complex strategic circumstances.

“More people are displaced. Longstanding rules are being bent, twisted or broken. Domains that we might prefer to separate – economic, diplomatic, strategic, military – are all interwoven,” she says.

“Unsustainable lending and coercive trade measures, political interference and disinformation – these all encroach on the ability of countries to contribute to regional balance. I want to emphasise the importance of that regional balance.

“If any country thinks that they can dominate another, the risk of conflict increases. We must ensure that no state ever concludes that the benefits of conflict outweigh the risks.”

In his keynote address, Mr Malinauskas will draw on his United States visit earlier in May to say he does not believe the scale of the opportunity and responsibility to build nuclear-powered submarines has yet sunk in on Australia’s eastern seaboard.

He will say a disjointed national effort to meet skills and industry uplifts required to build the submarines in short timelines was raised during talks on his United States trip.

ASC managing director Stuart Whiley, whose firm in March was named as the joint constructor and sole maintainer of the nation’s nuclear-powered submarine fleet, outlined a national recruiting campaign emphasising the “deeper purpose” of working on the national enterprise.

He said history showed ASC, formerly the Australian Submarine Corporation, overcame scepticism about a dearth of skilled workers to build and maintain the Collins Class submarine fleet.

“We are confident that we can do it again with conventionally-armed nuclear-powered

submarine submarines. As Australia embarks on the most significant phase in its shipbuilding history, it’s time to rekindle the enthusiasm and optimism that accompanied the initial Collins Class build,” said Mr Whiley, an ASC veteran of almost 35 years.

Originally published as Penny Wong to deliver blunt message on China’s military operations at Defending Australia summit