Australia on Wednesday unveiled plans to spend A$747 million (US$581 million) upgrading its military bases and expanding joint exercises with the United States , amid warnings in the country about the risk of a confrontation with China – though analysts questioned whether the spending was entirely new or significant. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Canberra would work with allies including Washington to focus on “pursuing peace, stability and a free and open Indo-Pacific, with a world order that favours freedom”. “Working with the United States, our allies and Indo-Pacific neighbours, we will continue to advance Australia’s interests by investing in the Australian Defence Force, particularly across northern Australia,” Morrison said in Darwin, according to the Australian Associated Press. The funding, which is part of previously announced spending plans, will be used to upgrade an airstrip and improve training facilities for Australian defence personnel and US Marines in the remote Northern Territory, which hosts thousands of American troops under a deal struck in 2011 between then-Prime Minister Julia Gillard and former US President Barack Obama . The announcement comes days after two senior government figures raised the alarm about the possibility of Australia becoming embroiled in a regional military conflict. China tells Australia to abide by one-China principle after Taiwan warning Defence Minister Peter Dutton on Sunday said Australia should be “realistic” about China’s ambitions and a conflict over Taiwan “should not be discounted,” although Canberra would work with its allies to ensure peace in the region. Earlier this week, Home Affairs Secretary Mike Pezzullo warned that democratic nations could “hear the beating drums” and now “watch worryingly the militarisation of issues that we had, until recent years, thought unlikely to be catalysts for war.” Pezzullo, who made his remarks in a message to staff to mark Anzac Day, which commemorates Australians and New Zealanders killed in war, did not mention China by name. China’s Foreign Ministry on Monday warned Canberra to “abide by the one-China principle” and “do more things to benefit the peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait and Sino-Australian relations.” Sino-Australian relations have sunk to their lowest point in decades during the past year, amid disputes spanning trade , the origins of Covid-19 , and allegations of interference and espionage . Canberra’s latest defence announcement comes after Morrison’s centre-right government in July announced plans to spend A$270 billion (US$210 billion) on defence over the next decade, up nearly 40 per cent from a previous strategic review in 2016. Morrison at the time said the increase was needed as Australia faced a “poorer, more dangerous and more disorderly” world and a “conflation of global economic and strategic uncertainty” not seen since the second world war. John Blaxland, a professor at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University, said there was a growing awareness that Australia could no longer rely on the US-led post-Cold War status quo to ensure its security. No one else in the neighbourhood has been increasing their military capabilities remotely on the scale of China’s increase, and that’s very unsettling John Blaxland, Australian National University “Not only is the US not unrivalled, but its evident commitment and ability to sustain security guarantees in the Indo-Pacific is questionable, and that is driving a concern in Australia about our defence and security posture,” he said. Blaxland said recent warnings about the possibility of war were a “domestically focused wake-up call” and that Australia’s military, while professional and well-equipped, remained far too small to deal with rising uncertainties, including Beijing’s growing power and influence. “No one else in the neighbourhood has been increasing their military capabilities remotely on the scale of China’s increase, and that’s very unsettling, particularly when it’s combined with Wolf Warrior diplomacy and the exercise of China’s sharp power, through trade sanctions [and] actions in the South China Sea,” he said. The idea that Australia would go to war against China with the US over Taiwan would result in national suicide Scott Burchill, Deakin University Meanwhile, Scott Burchill, a senior lecturer in international relations at Deakin University in Melbourne, said recent rhetoric around China and the threat of conflict had been “costly” and “entirely counterproductive”. “It is crazy, irresponsible and comes from people who seem to know nothing about recent history or the consequences of their actions,” said Burchill, who described the latest defence announcements as “militarily insignificant” and a rehash of earlier pledges. “For example, the idea that Australia would go to war against China with the US over Taiwan would result in national suicide.”