Reynolds urges US to step-up in Indo-Pacific

Defence Minister Linda Reynolds wants the US to ‘really listen’ to the concerns of allied nations in the Indo-Pacific region.

‘We need to listen’ ... Defence Minister Linda Reynolds at the Pentagon on Friday with US counterpart Mark Esper. Picture: AFP

Defence Minister Linda Reynolds will declare the US cannot single-handedly ensure peace in the Indo-Pacific, urging the Trump administration to “really listen” to the concerns of allied nations to help strengthen the regional order.

Senator Reynolds will tell an audience in Washington that the region’s future stability and prosperity “hinge on sustaining and deepening US engagement”, warning that America must embrace multilateralism and be sensitive to regional concerns.

She will use the speech to one of the US’s top strategic and economic think tanks to commit Australia to working with the US to ensure “a credible hard power ­deterrent” in the region.

“Deterrence is a joint ­responsibility for a shared purpose — one that no country, not even the United States, can undertake alone,” Senator Reynolds will tell the Hudson Institute on Saturday, Australian time.

Amid a surge in unilateral foreign policy decision-making by President Donald Trump, Senator Reynolds will call on the US to work hard to win regional nations to its side “through actions and ­demonstrable sovereign respect — not just words”.

“We need to listen, really listen, to concerns and different perspectives, and take account of ­regional sovereign aspirations and interests,” she will say.

“Australia does not take for granted a regional default inclination towards the advantages of existing rules-based systems – nor should the United States.

“As clear as those advantages are to us, we must constantly prove them to others.”

She will declare US engagement must involve “more than committing military strength — as crucial as this has been and will continue to be”.

China would “require clear and deft handling”, and Australia would seek to engage co-operatively with Beijing while making it clear our values are “not negotiable”.

Senator Reynolds will point to Beijing’s modernisation of its military forces and its militarisation of islands in the South China Sea as “developments of very real strategic concern”, alongside North Korean nuclear and missile testing.

She will also warn that new strategic dangers — from economic coercion, foreign interference and “grey-zone” tactics that fall short of direct conflict — pose challenges that go beyond conventional military threats.

The speech follows a key US Studies Centre report finding America “no longer enjoys military primacy in the Indo-Pacific and its capacity to uphold a favourable balance of power is ­increasingly uncertain”.

“The combined effect of ongoing wars in the Middle East, budget austerity, underinvestment in advanced military capabilities and the scale of America’s liberal order-building agenda has left the US armed forces ill-prepared for great power competition in the Indo-Pacific,” it said.

US allies across the world were shocked at Mr Trump’s decision to withdraw support for the Kurds in Syria, while Indo-Pacific ­nations were alarmed this week by the downgrading of American participation in back-to-back Asia-Pacific summits starting in Thailand this weekend.

The US Indo-Pacific Strategy Report, released earlier this year, described the East Asia Summit as the region’s leading forum for ­addressing political and security challenges.

But the White House announced on Tuesday that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross would replace Mr Trump in Bangkok at the East Asia and ASEAN summits.

Mr Trump also skipped last year’s APEC summit in Port ­Moresby.