Australia supports US' efforts to establish reliable, open channels of communication with China: PM Anthony Albanese

Singapore, June 2 : Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Friday said the country strongly supports US' efforts to establish reliable and open channels of communication with China.

"Australia strongly supports renewed efforts from President Biden's administration to establish reliable and open channels of communication between the governments of the United States of America and the People's Republic of China," Albanese said in his speech during the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.

The Australian PM said he wants to recognise the speech Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong gave in China where he said: "Big powers have a heavy responsibility to maintain stable and workable relations with one another."

He said: "Because the alternative, the silence of the diplomatic deep freeze, only breeds suspicion, only makes it easier for nations to attribute motive to misunderstanding, to assume the worst of one another."

Albanese said: "If you don't have the pressure valve of dialogue, if you don't have the capacity, at a decision-making level, to pick up the phone, to seek some clarity or provide some context, then there is always a much greater risk of assumptions spilling over into irretrievable action and reaction."

The Australian PM said that the consequences of such a breakdown, whether in the Taiwan Strait or elsewhere, would not be confined to the big powers or the site of their conflict, they would be devastating for the world.

"That's why, as leaders in this region, and as citizens of it, we should be doing everything we can to support the building of that first and most fundamental guardrail," he said.

"In Australia, our Government has put dialogue at the heart of our efforts to stabilise our relationship with China," the Australian PM said.

The IISS Shangri-La Dialogue kicked off in Singapore on June 2.

The Shangri-La Dialogue is Asia's defence summit. It's a meeting where ministers debate the region's security challenges, engage in important bilateral talks and come up with fresh approaches together.

The 2023 event is taking place in Singapore on June 2-4.