Welcoming the “expanding relationship” that the Philippines has with other countries, Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Richard Marles said that the Philippines’ recent moves to strengthen defense and bilateral ties with its neighbors “is not really in my mind about China.”

In a recent interview on Newswatch, the visiting Australian official explained that there was a commonality among the countries that the Philippines has recently established or strengthened its relationships with.

“As you go through that list of countries, what they have in common is wanting to see, or be in a world governed by rules and the countries that seek to assert the global rules-based order,” he said.

“I think in respect of China, this is not really in my mind about China. What this is about is building that world which I've described which is based on rules and it is about countries which believe in having a rules-based order, working together to try and assert that rules-based order, understanding that it is an order which is currently under pressure,” he added.

For Marles, “it makes sense” for the Philippines to expand these relationships as Australia is doing the same because “we want to live in a world where disputes between nations are resolved by reference to international law, are done through negotiation.”

The official explained how the rule of law and a rules-based order are “being placed under pressure here in the Indo-Pacific and Southeast Asia,” which “engages both the national interest of the Philippines and Australia.”

“And so what you've now got is both countries working very closely together to assert that rules-based order. And in the process, we're really seeing our relationship blossom,” he added.

His remarks came amid an agreement between the two countries intensify its defense relations through an Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), which builds on the 1995 Memorandum of Understanding on defense cooperation.

“But the world has really changed since then, as has our defense relationship. And we really want to take that defense engagement and the agreements around that to the next level,” the official explained.

The agreement will lead to an annual ministerial-level defense meeting, as well as exercises and operations between the two defense forces after the participation of some 1,600 Australian personnel to the war games conducted with the Philippines, the United States, and Canada that involved 3,500 servicemen.

Expected to be signed next year, the agreement “will guide how we move forward in terms of the defense relationship between our two countries and one which will comprehend the strategic landscape, the challenges that we both face.”

Marles also underscored the close people-to-people relationship between the Philippines and Australia because of the large presence of Filipinos there.

“We are two countries, both of which share values, democracies, freedom of speech. We are committed to the rule of law at home but committed to a rules-based system abroad,” he maintained.

Marles was visiting Manila as the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) was conducting a military exercise with the Australian Defence Forces (ADF) dubbed as Exercise ALON (Amphibious and Land Operations).