Foreign Minister Penny Wong has urged all countries to work together to prevent a "catastrophic" war in the Indo-Pacific region.
In a speech in the UK early today, she said US-China tensions were making the region "more dangerous and volatile" and any conflict would be felt across the world.
"If conflict were to break out in the Indo-Pacific, it would be catastrophic – for our people and our prosperity," Wong told an audience at King's College London.
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The foreign minister said that it was "up to all countries to ask ourselves how can we each use our national power, our influence, our networks, our capabilities, to avert catastrophic conflict".
Wong called on China to take up a proposal from the Biden administration to set some broad limits on their strategic ambitions to prevent potential flashpoints.
She stressed the Albanese government did not want to "force people to choose sides" in the superpower rivalry between the US and China.
Last December, Wong became the first Australian minister to visit China in three years where she met her Chinese counterpart.
Wong and Defence Minister Richard Marles are visiting the UK for talks with their British counterparts this week.
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UK 'should face up to colonial past'
In her speech, Wong also urged Britain to confront its colonial past if it wanted to strengthen and build new ties in the Indo-Pacific.
Recalling her own family's experience of British colonialism, the Malaysian-born Wong said Britain and other countries should strive to shed the "sheltered in narrower versions" of their histories.
"My father is descended from Hakka and Cantonese Chinese," she said.
"Many from these clans laboured for the British North Borneo Company in tin mines and plantations for tobacco and timber.
"Many worked as domestic servants for British colonists, as did my own grandmother.
"Such stories can sometimes feel uncomfortable – for those whose stories they are, and for those who hear them.
"But understanding the past enables us to better share the present and the future."
In the facing of growing Chinese assertiveness, Britain is aiming to build security and trade ties in the Indo-Pacific.
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