Outgoing Defence chief Mark Binskin has taken aim at Beijing over its militarisation of the South China Sea.
Air Chief Marshal Binskin said China has lost of the trust of its Asian and Pacific neighbours with its aggressiveness in the contested waterway, and dismissed claims the military build-up on the Paracel and Spratly islands was for defence reasons.
"I don't think there is trust there... [according to] all the reports that you see, they are militarising," Mr Binskin told Fairfax on Friday.
"If you want to be a leader in a region, then you've got to be able to be trusted in your actions."
The Australian Defence Force chief will retire on Friday, handing over command to General Angus Campbell.
In one of his final interviews as ADF chief, Mr Binskin had a message for ambitious countries like China: "Don't destabilise the region."
He acknowledged China's trajectory had changed since he took over in 2014, becoming increasingly assertive.
One example was the placing of weapons on archipelagos in the South China Sea, and he dismissed China's claims it was purely defensive.
Government frontbencher Peter Dutton on Friday denied a new deal reached with Pacific Island nations on security was targeted towards China.
"China is reaching out across the world including into our region," Mr Dutton told the ABC on Friday.
"But in our neighbourhood we have a responsibility to work with our neighbours."
But his colleague, frontbencher Mathias Cormann, told Sky News that Australia and China had issues "from time to time".
File: Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton leaves Question Time in the House of Representatives Source: AAP
Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese said the lesson was that foreign aid played a role in international relations, and shouldn't be subjected to cuts.
"We should continue to play a leadership role in the Pacific," he told the ABC.
"We don't want to see a militarisation in the Pacific from China or Russia. We want to be the leaders, as we have been for many decades."
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