Defence Minister Peter Dutton says that China has responded irrationally to the Aukus pact between Australia, the United States and Britain.
The conservative Australian minister continues to criticise the Chinese government, accusing it of bullying countries that stand up to Beijing.
The Australian government formed the Aukus partnership with the US and the UK on Sunday, because it wanted to see more stability and peace in our region. The response of China to that was irrational, Dutton told Sky News Australia.
He said it was wrong to suggest Australia was the one fuelling an arms race in the region when China has 355 vessels in its naval fleet, going to 400 within the next nine years. They are producing more naval assets every 18 months than the Royal Australian NavyAustralian Navy has in its entire fleet, and it is not true that it is the only one fuelling an arms race in the region.
China has sought to portray the Aukus deal as an Anglo-Saxon clique and a threat to the nuclear non-proliferation system.
China's acting ambassador to Australia, Wang Xining, likened Australia to a naughty guy who said it would be branded as a sabre wielder rather than a peace defender as a result of the plan.
The concerns are not limited to China, with the Australian government moving to allay Malaysia and Indonesia s worries that the Aukus deal could cause a regional arms race and pose nuclear non-proliferation issues.
After Australia joined the US and the UK last week in announcing a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics in response to human rights abuses in China's Xinjiang region, tensions with Beijing are about to increase.
China's foreign ministry said that those countries would pay a price for their wrongdoing and posturing When asked on Sunday about this threat, Dutton said that China had also threatened Lithuania with trade actions in recent weeks and it sounded unsettling and it was unnecessary to be honest. Dutton, who has been accused of ramping up national security rhetoric for political purposes as a federal election looms, said it was important to be realistic about how China's outlook had changed quite dramatically under Xi Jinping's leadership.
He said that the Australian government s problem is with the Chinese government, not with the Chinese people. Australia has an incredibly successful diaspora community with more than a million people of Chinese descent who have made an enormous contribution to our country. He said last month it would be inconceivable that Australia wouldn't come to Taiwan s aid if the US defended the democratically governed island against an invasion by China. He denied that this amounted to pre-committing Australia to war.
Australian foreign minister, Marise Payne, discussed tensions across the Taiwan Strait during a meeting with US secretary of state Antony Blinken in the UK on Saturday.
The US state department said the pair had reiterated support for a peaceful resolution of cross-Strait issues without resorting to threats or coercion and highlighted Taiwan's important contributions to global health development. Payne and Blinken met on the sidelines of a G 7 foreign and development ministers meeting in Liverpool. The Biden administration is yet to name an ambassador to Australia, but there has been speculation that it will nominate Caroline Kennedy, the former ambassador to Japan and daughter of John F Kennedy.
Amid continued competition for regional influence, the Australian government announced on Sunday it would join the US and Japan to fund a new submarine telecommunications cable in the Pacific.
The project, estimated to cost up to A 104 m, aims to improve internet services in Kiribati, Nauru and the Federated States of Micronesia. Payne said such partnerships meet genuine needs and respect sovereignty. Regional security will be one of the main topics on the agenda when South Korea s president Moon Jae-in meets Australia's prime minister Scott Morrison in Canberra on Monday.