Australia will determine its own defence policy: PM

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Australia will determine its own defence policy: PM

Australia will determine its own defence policy in the face of mounting US pressure on countries in the Indo-Pacific to ramp up spending against what the superpower says is a real and imminent threat from China.

Addressing Asia’s top security summit in Singapore on Saturday, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called on his nation’s allies in the region to share the burden of deterrence by upgrading their own defences.

“There’s no reason to sugar coat it,” he told the Shangri-La Dialogue.

“The threat China poses is real, and it could be imminent.”

Responding to the remarks, Mr Albanese pointed to extra defence spending his government has already committed to.

“We’ll determine our defence policy, and we’ve invested just across (the next four years) an additional $10 billion in defence,” he told reporters in Hobart on Sunday.

“What we’ll do is continue to provide for investing in our capability but also investing in our relationships in the region.”

Defence spending will rise to about 2.3 per cent of GDP within the decade, from the two per cent it currently hovers at.

In Singapore at the summit, Defence Minister Richard Marles said the lift represented the “single biggest peacetime increase in defence expenditure in Australia’s history”.

“So we are beginning this journey,” he said.

“We’ve got runs on the board.”

Mr Hegseth said Beijing’s military action around Taiwan was “rehearsing for the real deal” in relation to an invasion of the island.

Mr Albanese said Australia’s position on Taiwan was “very clear” and included a bipartisan stance to support the status quo.

China views Taiwan as its own territory, and slammed the US as the biggest “troublemaker for regional peace and stability”.

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