‘We want to avert war’: Penny Wong counters Paul Keating’s AUKUS attacks

“Together, they contribute to the strategic balance of power that keeps the peace in our region.”

Wong previously said that Keating’s views on China and other foreign policy questions “belong to another time”.

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Wong’s speech comes amid further signs of a thaw in the Australia-China trade relationship and a week before the government is expected to release its response to the defence strategic review, a sweeping examination of the nation’s military assets.

The government last week dropped its World Trade Organisation case against Beijing’s tariffs on Australian barley, paving the way for the restrictions to be lifted in the coming months.

Wong will say the strategic competition between China and the United States in the Asia-Pacific “is more than great power rivalry and is in fact nothing less than a contest over the way our region and our world works”.

“It’s clear to me from my travels throughout the region that countries don’t want to live in a closed, hierarchical region where the rules are dictated by a single major power to suit its own interests,” she will say.

“It is also clear that countries want a region that is peaceful and stable. And that means sufficient balance to deter aggression and coercion, balance to which more players, including Australia, must contribute if it is to be durable.

“A balance where strategic reassurance through diplomacy is supported by military deterrence.”

She will say Australia’s focus “needs to be on how we ensure our fate is not determined by others, how we ensure our decisions are our own. How we live in a region where no country dominates, and no country is dominated.”

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In his first interview since the AUKUS details were announced, Navy chief Mark Hammond defended the submarine plan, telling The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age: “We are vulnerable to the interruption and disruption of sea lines of communication and seabed infrastructure, and we’ve seen both of those play out in the Ukraine conflict.

“That should bring it home to all of us that in the current deteriorating strategic environment, we need to take appropriate measures to mitigate against risks in the maritime domain in particular.”

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