China's build-up comes with no explanation and is straining Southeast Asia, Marles says in Cebu

Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles said on Thursday 29 October that China's military build-up, which he called the biggest conventional expansion the world has seen since the end of the Second World War, is creating pressure in Southeast Asia because Beijing has offered no strategic reassurance or explanation for it. He was speaking to reporters in Cebu on the sidelines of the ASEAN Defence Ministers' Meeting-Plus, according to a transcript released by his office and a report by CNA.

Asked where the pressure on the regional rules-based order was coming from, Marles said China was seeking to shape the world around it and to assert itself within its region, and that this was creating challenges for how Australia understands the rules of the road. He said Australia's focus was on upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which he described as under pressure, and that Canberra had made these points to China both directly and in public.

Marles argued that rules matter more to a middle power like Australia than to larger states, because they allow international disputes to be settled by law rather than by power and might. He said that was why Australia's national interest was bound up in the rules and why it was asserting its position.

Squad partners agree to work more closely

Marles said he had taken part in a four-way meeting of Australia, Japan, the Philippines and the United States, the informal defence grouping known as the Squad, where the members committed to greater coordination of defence policy, CNA reported. He said the pressures in the region were well understood by all four countries and that it was a time to lean harder on friends and neighbours and to work more closely together on collective security.

In opening remarks, Marles said that over two days in Cebu he had met counterparts from the United States, India, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and the host Philippines. He described the four-way format as an increasingly important gathering that has met over several years and whose cooperation is deepening. He added that thousands of Australian personnel had passed through the Philippines this year, whether training members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, joining Exercise Balikatan, or making port visits and other maritime cooperation activities.

Marles also linked freedom of navigation directly to Australia's economy, noting that most of the country's trade passes through the South China Sea and that this remains a focus of the Royal Australian Navy and the wider Australian Defence Force.

No update on diverted F-35 parts

Asked about the investigation into F-35 fighter parts that were diverted from Australia to Hong Kong, Marles said he had no update. He said the matter was being worked through with Lockheed Martin as prime contractor and that the government remained confident in the fundamental information security of Australia's F-35 programme.

Why it matters

CNA noted that China deploys hundreds of coast guard, navy and other vessels to patrol disputed parts of the South China Sea, which it claims almost entirely despite an international ruling that its position has no legal basis. It also recalled that Australia protested in July against a Chinese test of a nuclear-capable missile in the South Pacific, calling the launch destabilising, and that Manila has said Chinese military and coast guard presence in contested areas nearly doubled in September. Marles's remarks put Canberra's public reading of that pressure on the record at the region's main defence forum, alongside a pledge by the four Squad partners to align their defence policies more closely.