By Kirsty Needham
SYDNEY (Reuters) -Australia’s Defence Minister Richard Marles will meet with his U.S. and Japanese counterparts at an Asian security forum in Singapore, the first trilateral talks since elections in Australia and the Trump Administration took office.
Marles will attend the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s premier security forum, from May 30-June 1, making his first foreign visit since the centre-left Labor government won an increased majority in national elections this month.
Marles will meet Japanese Defence Minister Gen Nakatani and U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, his office said on Thursday.
The annual trilateral meeting was last held in November in Darwin, Australia, where the three countries agreed to increase joint military exercises, intelligence and surveillance cooperation.
Marles met Hegseth in February in Washington to discuss the AUKUS nuclear submarine partnership, under which Australia will make a $2 billion payment to the U.S. submarine industrial base this year.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s Pentagon officials have urged Australia to lift defence spending to 3% of gross domestic product, although Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Thursday his government would lift to 2.4% and invest in capability and relationships in the region.
Defence ministers, senior military and security officials and diplomats from around the world are expected to attend the summit.
Marles will speak on Saturday about proliferating risks in the region, his office said.
“The Government is committed to strengthening our global defence relationships, while deepening our diplomatic and defence partnerships in the Indo-Pacific,” Marles said in a statement.
Australian Strategic Policy Institute senior analyst for defence, Euan Graham, said the primary challenge for Marles is “to convince Australia’s security partners gathered in Singapore that the Australian Defence Force has enough capability to be credible in the near term, in case a regional crisis happens before AUKUS and other long-term investments can make a difference”.
Under the AUKUS timeline, an Australian and British-built nuclear-powered submarine will not arrive until 2040, while the purchase of Virginia-class submarines from the United States in 2032 is under a cloud because of production delays.
Graham, previously based in Singapore for the summit’s organiser, said Australia also needs to “do more to actively support extended nuclear deterrence by the United States”.
Australia has rebutted criticism from China that AUKUS undermines nuclear non-proliferation, by emphasising the submarines will be conventionally armed.
“Conventional deterrence has to join up with nuclear deterrence to be credible,” Graham said.
(Reporting by Kirsty Needham in Sydney; Editing by Saad Sayeed)
