Thanks to a visiting forces agreement signed in 2007 and effective from 2012, “the two countries boast strong defence and maritime cooperation”, Amador said. “Because of this, both have regularly conducted high-level dialogues and military exercises.”

“Australia is trying to position itself as at least an alternative pillar for development and security cooperation here in Southeast Asia,” said Don McLain Gill, a geopolitical analyst at De La Salle University in Manila. “While it still has a long way to go to significantly cement its influence in the region, the Philippines is in fact one of its most important anchors.”

The Philippines’ geographic location “is of strategic consequence to Australia”, he added. “The eastern seaboard of the Philippines’ exclusive economic zones along the South China Sea hosts an array of vital sea lanes that are critical to linking Australia and Oceania to the immediate region and to the rest of the world,” Gill said, adding that the shared democratic values between Manila and Canberra positioned the Philippines as a “strategic amplifier for Australia’s regional soft power objectives”.

Australia’s Defence Minister Richard Marles said in June last year that relations with Manila were at “high point”, calling the Philippines “vital for Australia’s capacity building” and describing the country as a bridge for broader engagement with Asean and multilateral regional platforms”.

China warns Aukus against going down ‘dangerous road’ over nuclear-powered submarine pact

More than a ‘US sheriff’?

But as Australia deepens its engagement in Southeast Asia and upholds its commitment to the international rules-based order, it risks encountering growing pressure from Beijing.

“The expulsion measures taken by the Chinese side are legitimate, professional and restrained, and China has lodged solemn representations with the Australian side,” foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said.

On Tuesday last week, Albanese noted in a statement that China was Australia’s largest trading partner – accounting for one-third of its total trade – “and will remain so for the foreseeable future”.

“We will continue to patiently and deliberately work towards a stable relationship with China, with dialogue at its core,” he said.

The Australian prime minister’s state visit, through Friday, is expected to take in Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu, with discussions on cooperation in AI, green energy and the digital economy.

But negotiations were sure to be “nuanced with geostrategic implications”, Amador said.

“Australia’s pursuit of economic interests with China may temper its security posturing,” he said, adding that this delicate balancing act risked producing “incoherent policies”.

Canberra had to “exercise diplomatic finesse in order to maintain credibility as a regional stabiliser, without escalating tensions while pursuing its economic goals,” he said. “Asean partners, including the Philippines, may watch closely how Australia walks this tightrope.”

“The challenge for Australia is to show that it is more than willing to engage with the rest of Southeast Asia in a way that would not make it seem that it is the sheriff of the United States.”

‘Two fingers’ to the US

“He was clearly giving a polite ‘two fingers’ to Washington’s calls we increase our defence spend,” Curran said. “He invoked the Curtin myth and World War II to make the point that we have a close relationship with the United States. But he made it very clear that it is the Australian government that will decide what is in Australia’s national interest.”

While Albanese’s government has outlined ambitious plans to modernise the military, deep dysfunction exists within the defence sector. Reports suggest dozens of senior officers and bureaucrats face imminent dismissal as part of a sweeping shake-up.

Defence Minister Richard Marles has argued that boosting spending without tackling structural issues such as workforce shortages, procurement inefficiencies and an institutional culture lacking transparency and accountability would do little to enhance capability. Sober minds in Washington may recognise this logic, and in any event, Australia’s long-standing ties with the US – rooted in shared values, culture and history – give Canberra significant bargaining power, even with a volatile Trump administration.

“The Quad gives considerable strategic depth to handle contingencies across the Asia-Pacific, and Australia is essentially a huge unsinkable aircraft carrier,” he said. “It is a vital deployment and logistics hub for America’s military presence in the Asia-Pacific.”

His speech also reflects the shifting role of Australia as a middle power in a region of some 4 billion people confronted with the most volatile strategic environment since the second world war.

Allegiances across the region are rapidly evolving under the twin pressures of Chinese assertiveness and the Trump administration’s apparent disregard for established alliances, as Lee-Brown observes.

“A lot of countries in Southeast Asia were split, some in the Chinese camp, some in the US camp, some in the middle,” he said. “But with the behaviour of the Trump administration, most are going to end up in the China camp.”

“India is interesting in that they’ve been forging ahead with their ‘Act-East’ policy. India is really pushing its relationships with Singapore and Indonesia, but also the Philippines with its sale of BrahMos missiles, and its strategic alliance with Vietnam.”

‘Poor white trash of Asia’?

The institute’s 2024 Asia Power Index ranked Australia fifth behind the US, China, India and Japan. Susanna Patton, director of Lowy’s Southeast Asia programme, said Australia scored highly for diplomatic and cultural influence, as well as economic exchanges. Its rating for defence networks slipped marginally, yet it remained second only to the US and ahead of Japan.

“I’ve got a view that goes against a lot of what you hear about Australia’s engagement with Asia, which tends to be very negative and tends to be framed through the prism that Australia’s engagement with Asia used to be better than what it is now,” she said. “But if you look at the facts of Australia’s current relationships in Asia, they are much more substantial and much more positive than they have been in the past.”

Australia’s trading relationships with China, Japan and South Korea are robust, and trade with India has surged since the signing of a free-trade agreement in 2022.

Speaking on Thursday at an event in Kuala Lumpur, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong offered Southeast Asia reassurances about her country’s “role in the region”.

“Australia still believes in the logic of the post-war economic order,” she told the audience at the Institute for Strategic and International Studies’ Malaysia Forum on Australia and Southeast Asia. “Economic security doesn’t have to be code for putting up walls. It is about making the right investments, with the right partners, at the right time.”

Touching on the issue of sovereignty, Wong said “there are some who want to define Australia’s security simply in terms of what China does or the United States does in the region. Or even more simply define Australia by our traditional allies and partners alone.”

“This has never sat well with me,” she said. “We may be bound by the geography that fate has chosen for us, but we are strengthened by the partnerships that we choose for ourselves.”

Harvard University’s Growth Lab ranks Australia 105th out of 145 countries for economic complexity – a proxy for resilience. Since 1995, it has tumbled 43 places on the Atlas of Economic Complexity, now nestled between Botswana and the Ivory Coast. The country’s lack of export diversification, the index cautions, could threaten its future prosperity.