On a rare and brief 24-hour visit, Mr Biden was welcomed at a reception by Foreign Minister Murray McCully who said he wanted to acknowledge the role the Obama administration has played “in placing the relationship of our two countries on its very strongest footing”.
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Australia has been a staunch ally of the U.S. in Iraq and in the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
“We want to see Australia continue to grow and to be a regional hub and a regional leader”, he told business leaders.
“Anyone who questions America’s dedication and staying power in the Asia-Pacific simply is not paying attention”, he told an audience including three former Australian prime ministers in Tony Abbott, John Howard and Bob Hawke.
Biden’s remarks, delivered at a media presentation with Turnbull after talks in Sydney, were bellicose.
At a meeting on Tuesday, the vice president and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull discussed the recent ruling by an worldwide tribunal denying Beijing’s claim to virtually the entire South China Sea.
“The United States is all in”.
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, left, waves as he arrives in Sydney with his granddaughters Naomi, center, and Finnegan, Monday, July 18, 2016. “As vital in this current era of change and uncertainty as it was a century ago in the trenches of World War I, as it was 75 years ago when together we defeated the forces of fascism, our alliance has been shaped by progress of our shared home in the Asia-Pacific and it’s been for decades”. It is overwhelmingly in our interests that you New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Korea and the northeast Pacific, and everywhere in between, that the countries prosper. “We mean what we say when we say we are rebalancing to the Pacific”, Mr Biden said.
Mr Biden praised links between USA and Australian troops.
“It’s not what we can do for Australia, it is what we can do with Australia. We have shown our commitment to lead the region over and over again”.
The pair announced Australia would expand the training mission inside Iraq to include federal and local police.
“Ours is a partnership that reminds us of what is best in ourselves”.
He also talked up the US’s economic prowess and, in comments coinciding with confirmation of Donald Trump’s Republican candidacy, spoke of the “xenophobia and demagoguery” sweeping politics.
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Turnbull noted that neither Australia nor the United States is a claimant to any of the reefs and other contested features in the South China Sea, which are disputed among the governments of China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei.
