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Singapore: The prime minister has laid out his vision for Australia’s most pressing foreign policy challenge: managing the rise of China.

This is a nuanced road map. There are threads of optimism that the region can avoid war, but it also acknowledges it may be driven into conflict and Australia must be prepared.

Anthony Albanese’s task is treading the line between the two and taking the Australian public and other countries with him.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese arrives in Singapore on Friday.Credit: Reuters

In his first major foreign policy speech since becoming prime minister, Albanese on Friday criticised what he sees as two simplistic propositions: Australia could choose to engage with China and forget Beijing’s military and security ambitions, or it could focus on building up its defences and national security to stop the threat from Beijing.

“To move from imagining [that] conflict is impossible, to assuming war is inevitable, is just as harmful to our shared goals,” Albanese told the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.

His middle path will require ongoing engagement with China, an openness to economic cooperation and constant reminders, however sincere, that Australia and its partners, particularly the United States and Japan, are not attempting to contain its economic ambitions.

“Our government has put dialogue at the heart of our efforts to stabilise our relationship with China. China’s extraordinary economic transformation has benefited not only its own population, it has benefited our entire region. Importantly, it is also due to our entire region,” he said.

“We begin from the principle that whatever the issue, whether we agree or disagree, it is always better and more effective if we deal direct.”

At the same time, through the $368 billion AUKUS nuclear submarine deal and the Quad, Albanese is making a long-term hard power investment in case that engagement fails.

“[By] making it crystal clear that when it comes to any unilateral attempt to change the status quo by force: be it in Taiwan, the South China Sea, the East China Sea or elsewhere, the risk of conflict will always far outweigh any potential reward.”

The Shangri-La speech had been planned by Albanese for months. It was finalised weeks ago. It shows his foreign affairs officials are thinking deeply about navigating the space between the US and China in a region that feels like it is increasingly being used as the stage for great-power competition.

“We sometimes hear our region described as a potential ‘theatre’ for conflict,” Albanese said. “As if this is merely a backdrop, a location, an arena for the ambitions of others. Such a view is entirely – and dangerously – wrong.

“Not only does such a characterisation dismiss the agency and ambition of a majority of the world’s population, and the engine room of the global economy. It also presents the future of this region as somehow a foregone conclusion.”

Albanese knew his audience. Asia’s largest defence dialogue is the only place where the green tails of generals from Vietnam, Indonesia, China and the US snake freely in and out of one hotel lobby. It is one of only two places where the Chinese and US defence chiefs meet each year. Many at the Shangri-La are anxious about how the revolving door of crises between Washington and Beijing could end if the world’s most powerful militaries are not speaking to each other. As of Friday, no official meeting had been locked in between the two superpowers.

Li Shangfu, China’s defence minister, in Singapore on Thursday. Credit: Bloomberg

“It’s not a good look, to turn up in Southeast Asia and not appear to be conciliatory on either side,” said the organiser of the event, International Institute for Strategic Studies Asia director James Crabtree.

“Both the United States and China have an incentive to kind of go that extra mile because that is what the region would like to see.”

Albanese acknowledged that some in the region were tired of being patronised as spectators and were being pulled between the US-led global order and China’s global civilisation initiative.

“I can assure you, that when Australia looks north, we don’t see a void for others to impose their will. We see growing and modernising economies. The fastest-growing region of the world in human history,” he said.

“And when nations such as ours choose to promote peace, we are not opting out from the big questions of security and stability. We are not choosing the smooth ride or the passive course.”

This is an ambitious position for a government only a year old. By seeking regional support and giving smaller nations a seat at the table, Albanese aims to put pressure on Washington and Beijing to come to an accord.

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