US presses Australia to step up naval exercises in South China Sea

The Trump administration is pressing Australia to increase freedom of navigation exercises in the South China Sea but Labor has urged the Coalition to use coming ministerial talks to query what the US is doing to ease tensions with China.

Australia’s foreign minister, Marise Payne, and defence minister, Linda Reynolds, are set to meet their US counterparts in Washington DC on Tuesday to discuss extending military cooperation in the South China Sea as well as countering online disinformation.

The meeting occurs against a backdrop of increased tensions, after Australian war ships had an unplanned encounter with China’s navy and Australia declared in a submission to the UN “there is no legal basis” to China’s territorial and maritime claims in the South China Sea.

Related: Australia declares 'there is no legal basis' to Beijing’s claims in South China Sea

US officials maintain Australia did not coordinate that statement with it, but the Australian intervention fits the US agenda of rallying its allies to exercise freedom of navigation in the South China Sea to construct it as a dispute not between China and the US but rather a group of like-minded countries.

Australia has rejected China’s claims up to and since a 2016 international tribunal ruled against it but has not directly challenged its largest trading partner by sailing within 12 nautical miles of the disputed territory. In the past, Labor has criticised this as Australia merely “pretending” to take action.

On Monday the shadow foreign minister, Penny Wong, said Payne and Reynolds “should be asking their counterparts what the US is doing to manage its strategic competition with China and should encourage a de-escalation of tensions between the world’s two great powers”.

Nevertheless, Wong reiterated Labor’s “in-principle support” for freedom of navigation exercises and called on the government to explain how it would work with south-east Asian partners to enforce the law of the sea.

The Australia–US ministerial (Ausmin) talks come as the Trump administration has become increasingly strident in criticism of the Chinese Communist Party, forcing it to close its Houston consulate over claims of espionage and intellectual property theft.

Donald Trump, who in the past celebrated Xi Jinping’s power grab through the abolition of term limits, spent much of early 2020 praising China’s handling of the coronavirus before a disastrous outbreak in the US shifted his rhetoric to blaming China.

The US has since pulled out of the World Health Organisation, prompting fears it is abdicating global leadership on the pandemic.

Wong challenged Payne and Reynolds to use the Ausmin talks “to make clear to their US counterparts the need to support the health and economic recovery of the Indo-Pacific and build resilience to future shocks”.

“This includes the need for effective global institutions like the WHO and a coordinated effort to develop and distribute a Covid-19 vaccine,” she said.

Related: Trump’s misleading information enables China to sow discord among allies, research finds

Wong expressed hope Payne would make “it clear that Australia’s interests aren’t served by the US walking away” from global leadership.

The Guardian understands Australia and the US will use Ausmin to announce new initiatives to coordinate counter-disinformation campaigns in the Indo-Pacific region.

In June, the United States Studies Centre’s Ashley Townshend warned that the Trump administration’s spreading of misinformation about the origins and treatment of Covid-19 had made it much harder for Australia and the US to counter disinformation campaigns being waged by China.

Wong also called on the government to use talks to “ensure Australian exporters aren’t collateral damage in the US-China phase one trade deal – particularly agricultural producers”.

The US and China signed a trade deal in January reducing US tariffs in exchange for Chinese guarantees to buy certain minimums of US goods, including a doubling of agricultural exports.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has confirmed that recent Chinese tariffs on Australian goods including barley would help China fulfil its obligations to the US under the deal.