Former foreign affairs minister Gareth Evans is urging Australia to reduce its dependence on the United States alliance and accept China as a legitimate "global rule maker".
Mr Evans, a senior member of the Hawke and Keating Labor governments, is also calling on the government to put "more bucks" into defence spending, potentially including nuclear-powered submarines, to be more self-reliant.
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"Less United States does not mean walking away from the alliance, from which we of course profoundly benefit in terms of access to intelligence and high-end armaments," Mr Evans, now Australian National University chancellor, will say in a speech to the National Press Club on Thursday.
"But less reflexive support for everything the US chooses to do is long overdue."
Mr Evans said Australia's support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the immediate backing of last week's American missile strikes against Syria were examples where Australia had been too quick to back the US.
"My own experience strongly suggests that periodically saying 'no' to the US when our national interests are manifestly different makes for a much healthier and [more] productive relationship, [rather] than one of craven dependence," Mr Evans will say.
He will accuse the Turnbull government of "absolute capitulation to US pressure" on nuclear disarmament efforts. Australia and other US allies recently walked away from United Nations talks that seek to ban and eliminate nuclear weapons.
In provocative terms, Mr Evans labelled Donald Trump "manifestly the most ill-informed, under-prepared, ethically challenged and psychologically ill-equipped president in US history".
Echoing calls from former prime minister Paul Keating, Mr Evans will argue Australia needs to increase its efforts in Asia.
"In the case of China, it means essentially recognising the legitimacy of China's claims to be a global rule maker and not just rule taker, and to have some strategic space of its own," he will contend, warning that the re-emerged superpower is sensitive to policies intended to contain it.
However, he says Australia should not be Beijing's "patsy", making clear that China abuse human rights or overreach in the South China Sea.
Mr Evans also wants more military independence but accepts the protection benefits of the US alliance, the world's only military superpower.
"This certainly means building defence capability that involves not only more bucks than we are usually comfortable spending but getting a bigger bang for each of them," he will say.
This could include the major step of developing a program to acquire nuclear-powered submarines.
Mr Evans' speech will take place at the launch of a book by former diplomat and adviser Allan Gyngell, Fear of Abandonment: Australia in the World Since 1942.
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