National Press Club: Penny Wong to declare Australia needs to harness 'all elements of our national power'

In an address to the National Press Club in Canberra on Monday, as she approaches one year as Foreign Minister, Senator Wong will outline her assessment of Australia's risks of strategic competition as well as the diplomatic responses to those risks.

The speech comes as there has been perceived further thawing in Australia's still frosty relationship with China. Australia's largest trading partner last week decided to review tough barley import restrictions for Australia and Australia responded by suspending its WTO appeal.

As well, DFAT secretary Jan Adams held discussions in Canberra with China's Executive Vice Foreign Affairs Minister Ma Zhaoxu during his visit to Australia.

In excerpts of the speech, seen by The Canberra Times, the minister is to outline statecraft ways to avert catastrophic conflict and shape the region in a way that "reflects our national interests and our shared regional interests".

"We need to harness all elements of our national power to advance our interests, when the implications of unchecked strategic competition in our region are grave," Senator Wong is expected to say.

"Those national and shared interests are in a region that operates by rules, standards and norms - where a larger country does not determine the fate of a smaller country; where each country can pursue its own aspirations, its own prosperity.

"And I want to talk about how by shaping that region we want, through coordinated statecraft, we contribute to the regional balance of power that keeps the peace."

READ MORE

Senator Wong will cite the difficulties of the diplomatic task ahead.

"Strategic competition is operating on several levels. Domains that we might prefer to separate - economic, diplomatic, strategic, military - all interwoven, and all framed by an intense contest of narratives," she will say.

"But as well as understanding how competition is operating, we need to understand what is being competed for - that it is more than great power rivalry and is in fact nothing less than a contest over the way our region and our world works."

In the face of stinging criticism from former Labor prime minister Paul Keating over the ALP's AUKUS stance and the party's small-target position on foreign policy before the past election, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese described Senator Wong as an "outstanding Foreign Minister" who repaired Australia's relationship in the Pacific.

In her Pacific travels so far, she said she has found countries don't want to be dictated to by a single major power to suit its own interests.

"Instead, we want an open and inclusive region, based on agreed rules, where countries of all sizes can choose their own destiny," she is to say.

Senator Wong warns the power struggle in the Indo-Pacific is beyond what many commentators and strategists see as two great powers competing for primacy. But she will insist it is not that black and white and diminishes Australia's own power.

"So countries like ours in this contested region need to sharpen our focus, on what our interests are, and how to uphold them," she is expected to say.

The focus, she will say, needs to be on ensuring "no country dominates and no country is dominated" as a strategic and peaceful balance of power is sought.

"A region where sovereignty is respected and all countries benefit from a strategic equilibrium," the minister is to say.

"An equilibrium that safeguards our capacity to disagree. An equilibrium that preserves our agency. An equilibrium that protects our ability to decide our own destiny. When we talk about our interests, this is what we mean."