Brexit and Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership are part of a broader retreat from globalism that is eroding the rules-based international order, Penny Wong will say in a speech on Wednesday.

The Australian senator and the Labor opposition’s foreign affairs spokeswoman will also question whether China’s Belt and Road Initiative will enhance stability, in her speech at Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.

Wong says there is “no disputing the international rules-based order is under its greatest period of stress since the end of the second world war” and blames the “breakdown in the global order” for inequality, the re-emergence of nationalism and racism, and refugee flows causing ethnic tension.

Britain’s decision to leave the EU was not just a symptom of economic and social malaise but a “clear rejection of the European rule-making system”, she says.

“Similarly, the Trump administration’s reassessment of the global strategic

engagement of the US is not simply a reaction to massive cost pressures.”

The decision to walk away from the TPP was “a rejection of the economic globalisation that has become such a distinguishing feature of the international rules-based order”.

“That is serious enough in itself. But perhaps more serious is the ongoing reappraisal of the way that the US sees itself in the conduct of global affairs.”

Wong references Trump’s national security strategy, which calls for a rethink of the assumption that “engagement with rivals and their inclusion in international institutions and global commerce would turn them into benign actors and trustworthy partners”.

Wong says the precise implications for south-east Asia of the US reappraisal were “quite unclear”.

Addressing the rise of China, Wong notes that the country is now the No 1 trading partner of the Association of South-East Asian Nations members collectively, as well as Australia individually.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative is a “game-changer”, she says, describing it as “an expression of strategic power, linking a new community of nations as both contributors to and beneficiaries of China’s remarkable growth”.

BRI is a “fundamental change in the way that strategic business is done”, Wong says, and she questions whether it could achieve its “long-term economic and political realignment” in a way that “ensures that it is beneficial and constructive, and that it enhances prosperity, stability and security”.

“This is a tricky question, given how little any of us really knows about the BRI, its

detailed purposes and its operating rules.”

Wong says China and the US will continue to “be both rule makers and rule takers” in the international order.

Citing the South China Sea dispute, Wong says it is not reasonable for nations “dissatisfied with the current order to change the rules unilaterally, to impose their will rather than reach a negotiated position that meets the needs of all parties”.

She suggests Asean should “put more energy and imagination into addressing the economic and security issues” and use a neutral forum to engage China, Japan, Russia and the US, including through the Asean regional forum and the East Asia Summit.

In January Australia’s international development minister, Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, criticised China for building “white elephant” infrastructure projects in Pacific nations.

The foreign affairs minster, Julie Bishop, attempted to walk back criticism of China’s aid program after Beijing labelled the intervention “nothing but irresponsible”.

On his visit to Japan last week, Malcolm Turnbull called the US commitment to the region “as strong as it ever has been”.

“You saw that from President Trump’s extended visit to the region just late last year,” he said. “They’re a vital part of the foundation, the security foundation, which has enabled all of this prosperity in the region, over 40 or more years.

“I’m very confident that that will continue long into the future and President Trump has been absolutely unequivocal about his commitment to it.”