Penny Wong delivers Indian Ocean strategy speech, urges China to be more transparent amid military build-up

The foreign minister has used a high-profile speech laying out Australia’s Indian Ocean’s strategy to warn against political interference and economic coercion, urging China to be more open about its military build-up while declaring that countries in the region are facing “unprecedented” threats from climate change and strategic competition. Senator Penny Wong and her Indian counterpart Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar are currently hosting foreign ministers and senior officials from more than 20 nations at the Indian Ocean Conference in Perth, which has drawn in high level representatives from across South Asia, the Pacific, the Middle East and East Africa. India and…