The foreign minister has used a keynote speech in Perth to warn about the risk of conflict in the Indian Ocean while pressing China to be more open about its military build-up. Penny Wong delivered the warning at a major gathering of foreign ministers and top officials from Indian ocean states from South Asia through to the Middle East and Eastern Africa.
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00:00 A gathering of friends at a perilous moment.
00:07 The same unprecedented threats that are facing the Pacific Ocean side of the region are also
00:13 faced on the Indian Ocean side.
00:15 New Delhi and Beijing are facing off in the Indian Ocean with more Chinese warships, surveillance
00:21 ships and submarines pushing into waters uncomfortably close to India.
00:27 Countries of the Indo-Pacific face China's rapid military build-up without the transparency
00:32 and reassurance that the region looks for from all great powers.
00:37 Australia is preparing on its own Indian Ocean territory of Cocos Keeling Islands, lengthening
00:42 a key runway so high-tech surveillance planes can land there.
00:45 We always seek presence in order to reinforce stability.
00:51 India and Australia also share very similar anxieties about Chinese diplomacy in some
00:57 Indian Ocean states.
00:59 There is a need to address disinformation, interference, opaque lending practices and
01:06 coercive trade measures.
01:07 Unsustainable debt, opaque lending practices, unviable projects and injudicious choices.
01:16 Similarly, there are the complexities of dual-purpose agendas.
01:22 But some of the countries caught in the tussle between China and India would prefer all the
01:27 major powers to take a step back.
01:29 Sri Lanka's President warning that the jostling is making life harder and more unpredictable.
01:36 The space for manual build for littoral states is shrinking fast.
01:40 The list of potential hot spots and conflict zones around the globe just seems to keep
01:45 on growing.
01:46 Australia is anxious that the Indian Ocean could join that list in the future.
01:51 One of the best ways to hedge against that is to form tighter informal bonds with larger
01:56 numbers of smaller countries in the hope that they can convince the larger powers to keep
02:02 the peace.
02:03 [BLANK_AUDIO]