Australia says US alliance vital with Indo-Pacific tensions

Australia’s foreign minister says her country’s alliance with the United States has never been more vital in an era of escalating challenges in the Indo-Pacific region.

In her first major policy speech since she took over the foreign ministry in August, Marise Payne told an Australian Institute of International Affairs annual conference on Monday that Australia needs to defend its interests in “a period of strategic uncertainty.”

The former defense minister’s staunch declaration of support for the United States came after the Chinese Communist Party-owned newspaper China Daily accused Australia and Japan in an editorial last week of “jumping on the U.S. bandwagon to contain China.”

Payne says Australians “have no doubt that the U.S. will remain an enduring presence” in the region.