Mr Russel was speaking after top-level Ausmin security meetings that opened the door to the integration of Australian and US ballistic missile defence systems, additional US ship visits to Perth and increased use of a Northern Territory bombing range by the US Air Force. He said the US remained overwhelmingly committed to the Asian region even as the Obama administration was prosecuting air strikes in Iraq and coming under pressure to intervene to curb a worsening band of disorder that now stretches from Libya to Ukraine. Mr Russel's strongest comments were in response to Mr Fraser's view that the US-Australia alliance is a Cold War anachronism that denies Australia the strategic room to opt out of any war against China. ''I think there isn't going to be a war with China,'' Mr Russel said. ''It's grossly misleading to suggest that the US approach to the Asia-Pacific region is introducing a risk factor to Australia.''

Mr Russel said the Obama administration had improved ties with every country in the region – ''with the glaring exception of North Korea'' – and assiduously sought to engage and co-operate with China. He was nevertheless concerned about Chinese coercion in the South China Sea and, most recently, an unprecedented legal assault on multinational corporations operating in China. Chinese officials have used new anti-monopoly laws to open investigations into at least 20 US, Japanese and German firms including Microsoft, Chrysler, Toyota, Audi and the consulting firm Accenture. ''Selective or frivolous prosecutions would be a problem anywhere,'' Mr Russel said, without purporting to take a view on individual cases. ''As a policymaker, it's something that I'm of course very concerned about.''

Australian firms sell about a third of all exports to China but it seems they have not been targeted in the present blitz. Former ambassador to China Geoff Raby said China was using economic means to send a political message. ''There is a decision that has been made at the most senior level of the system,'' Dr Raby, who is a director of Fortescue and representative of several other Australian firms in China, said. ''I feel this is part of China reminding the United States that there are costs in how the relationship is managed.'' Dr Raby said it was unlikely that Australia would be similarly targeted because Australia was not sufficiently important and because China relied upon the iron trade.

''But when you have such a high level of trade dependency as we do, we always have to live with the reality that they could use commercial pressure on us.'' In his book Dangerous Allies, Mr Fraser urges Australia to drop the US alliance to avert conflict with China. ''Our armed forces are so closely intertwined with theirs and we really have lost the capacity to make our own strategic decisions,'' Mr Fraser has said. Mr Russel said war was highly unlikely but did not directly address the question of whether Australia would be necessarily involved if it did occur. Loading

"The prospects of conflict with China are becoming less and less imaginable," he said. Follow us on Twitter