Australia deepens US defence ties while keeping China trade central

Australia is expanding military cooperation with the United States while keeping China at the centre of its trade relationships, a balance sharpened by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s call for Indo-Pacific countries to shape their own future. A BBC report from Townsville describes joint military training and a growing US Marine presence; separate ABC reporting records Albanese’s warning against treating the region as a contest controlled by Washington and Beijing.

The two accounts show the pressure on Canberra from different directions. Its security planning rests heavily on the US alliance, while China remains its largest trading partner, according to the BBC. Albanese’s recent speech set out a public case for regional agency and rules that protect trade and smaller states. Neither the speech nor the military exercise establishes how Australia’s relationship with either power will develop.

Military ties with the United States

Reporting from a Southern Jackaroo training scenario near Townsville, the BBC described Australian, American and Japanese forces using snipers, missiles, drones and helicopters. The joint exercise was intended to strengthen defence cooperation across the Indo-Pacific. The scenes were simulated combat, not a report of fighting, and the BBC account does not establish the exercise’s exact dates.

Australian Army Brigadier Ben McLennan told the BBC that preparing for a war potentially more likely than before was important. He described rehearsing for a ‘World War Two-like’ or ‘total’ war, but did not name a prospective enemy. His comments explain the scale of the training without establishing that a conflict is expected or that the exercise was aimed at a particular country.

The BBC quoted Australia’s 2026 National Defence Strategy as calling competition between the US and China an enduring feature of the country’s strategic environment. The strategy also expressed concern about China’s military build-up. Those statements help explain Australia’s defence priorities; they do not amount to a declaration that China is the unnamed opponent in Southern Jackaroo.

Trade and public opinion pull in another direction

China became Australia’s biggest trading partner in the early 2010s, and the two countries signed a free trade agreement in 2015, the BBC reported. That economic relationship has persisted through political disputes. The BBC said Australia’s call in 2020 for an inquiry into the origins of COVID-19 was followed by Chinese tariffs, and Australia cancelled Victoria’s Belt and Road agreement in 2021.

Trade tensions have not disappeared. China imposed 55% tariffs on Australian beef in June 2026 to protect its domestic market, according to the BBC. That example shows why access to the Chinese market remains a practical issue for Australian exporters even as Canberra strengthens security ties with Washington.

Public opinion also illustrates the competing pressures. Citing the Lowy Institute’s 2026 poll, the BBC reported that 61% of Australians saw China more as an economic partner than a security threat, up 11 percentage points from the previous year. It said 51% considered Australia’s relationship with China more important than its relationship with the US. Those figures are attributed to the BBC’s report of the findings.

The same BBC account quoted Lowy Institute researcher Charles Lyons-Jones saying 31% of Australians trusted the United States to act responsibly in the world, while 28% said the same of China. The figures point to public doubts about both powers, even as the Australian government relies on one for security and trades extensively with the other.

Albanese’s case for regional agency

In a New York foreign-policy speech reported by ABC on 24 September, Albanese said the Indo-Pacific was ‘not a chessboard on which superpowers move the pieces.’ He said regional countries were shaping their own future. The language presented Australia’s position as one in which regional governments have choices of their own, despite the weight of US–China competition.

Albanese also called the post-1945 world order ‘no longer fit for purpose’ and said Australia should help shape what replaces it, ABC reported. He argued that Australia needs a region where ships and aircraft can move freely, trade can reach markets without obstruction, and the sovereignty of small states is respected. Those are stated policy aims, not evidence that the underlying tensions have been resolved.

Dialogue alongside deterrence

Australia has kept a defence channel open with Beijing. In its account of an officials-level Defence Coordination Dialogue held in Beijing on 17 September, the Australian Department of Defence named Bernard Philip and Major General Ye Jiang as the respective delegation leaders. It said the previous dialogue had taken place in October 2024.

The department said the delegations discussed regional and global security and future dialogue. According to its account, Australia raised safe military conduct, the risk of miscalculation and escalation, and China’s 6 July submarine-launched ballistic missile test. That is Australia’s official description of the meeting; it does not include a Chinese account or a joint communiqué.

Taken together, the reported exercise, Albanese’s speech and the defence dialogue show three active parts of Australia’s approach: training with US allies, arguing for regional rules, and talking directly with China about security risks. The accounts establish those actions and statements. They leave open how Beijing and Washington will respond, and whether Canberra can sustain the same balance as their competition continues.