China’s actions asserting its claims in the South China Sea are “unhelpful,” Australian Defence Minister David Johnston said at a security forum, echoing his U.S. counterpart who called China a destabilizing factor.
“They’ve been certainly unhelpful, and if they’re unhelpful they must be destabilizing,” Johnston, 58, said yesterday in an interview at the Shangri-La security forum in Singapore. “The unilateral action of the declaration of boundaries is completely unhelpful and takes us in the wrong direction.”
Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s government is seeking to build out Australia’s defense capacity at a time of rising assertiveness by China in the region. Abbott must balance his nation’s interests between the U.S. — a strategic ally that has Marines based in the northern Australia city of Darwin — and top trading partner China, which it criticized last year for proclaiming an air defense identification zone over islands in the East China Sea claimed by both China and Japan.
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