President Xi Jinping holds a welcome ceremony for To Lam, general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee and Vietnamese president, prior to their talks in Beijing, China, on August 19, 2024. (Yao Dawei/Xinhua via Getty Images)
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, US Secretary of States Antony Blinken, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa, and Japanese Defense Minister Minoru Kihara attend a joint press conference following the US-Japan foreign and defense ministers’ meeting on the sidelines of the Quad meeting at the Iikura Guest House on July 28, 2024, in Tokyo, Japan. (Getty Images)
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence Richard Marles, and Japanese Minister of Defense Minoru Kihara during a trilateral defense ministerial meeting at US Indo-Pacific Command headquarters in Hawaii on May 2, 2024. (DVIDS)
Senior lecturer in the Department of Security Studies and Criminology at Macquarie University, Council of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute