Australia’s foreign minister is about to deliver a message to Beijing that Canberra has been holding back for months: we are building a nuclear-powered submarine fleet and a military capable of defending ourselves, and we will not be intimidated by your provocations.
Penny Wong will deliver the speech on Wednesday at the ASEAN summit in Laos, according to advance copies seen by the Guardian. The venue matters, ASEAN is the forum where China has spent years trying to build influence through loans, infrastructure deals, and diplomatic pressure. Wong is there to offer an alternative.
“Australia is building a nuclear-powered submarine capability, with the United Kingdom and the United States, to ensure no country, including China, can hold us to ransom through military coercion,” the speech says, according to reports.
The timing is not accidental.
A missile in the Pacific
China recently test-launched a nuclear-capable submarine-launched ballistic missile into the Pacific. Australia, New Zealand, and Japan jointly denounced the test as “destabilizing.” The missile carried a dummy warhead and traveled a distance that demonstrated China’s ability to strike targets across the entire Pacific basin.
For Australia, this is the kind of provocation Wong is talking about. China has been conducting live-fire naval drills off Australia’s coast, mapping the seabed with research vessels that look very much like spy ships, and building military bases in the South Pacific that Canberra views as a direct challenge to its sphere of influence.
Wong met her Chinese counterpart on Tuesday night on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit. The conversation was described as “frank”, diplomatic language for tense.
The nuclear question
Australia’s decision to acquire nuclear-powered submarines under the AUKUS pact was always going to anger Beijing. China has called it a “dangerous escalation” and accused Australia of contributing to a regional arms race.
Wong’s response is that the arms race started when China began building its nuclear arsenal and projecting power into the Pacific. Australia is reacting, not initiating.
The speech is notable for its directness. “Provocative actions” is not a phrase Australian foreign ministers use lightly about China. For years, Canberra tried to manage the relationship with careful language, balancing trade dependence on China with security dependence on the United States. That balance has shifted. China is now Australia’s largest trading partner and its primary security concern.
What this means for the region
The Pacific island nations are watching this closely. Many of them have signed security agreements with China, the Solomon Islands, Kiribati, and others. Australia has been racing to match Chinese influence with its own aid packages and defense cooperation agreements, including a recent defense pact with Fiji.
The Wong speech is part of a broader Australian strategy: make the case publicly that China’s actions are not the behavior of a peaceful rising power, and that the region needs to push back collectively.
Whether other ASEAN members follow is the open question. Many of them have their own reasons not to pick a side, trade dependence on China, fear of Chinese retaliation, internal political divisions. The Philippines under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has been the most vocal on the South China Sea. Vietnam and Malaysia have been quieter. Thailand is hedging.
Wong’s speech will not change Beijing’s calculations. China will continue building its navy, testing missiles, and pressing its claims. But it marks a shift in Australian policy: from quiet diplomacy to public confrontation. For a country that has spent decades trying not to offend its largest trading partner, that is a significant step.