Mr Lander said he held deep reservations about the US military presence in Australia, with the former deputy ambassador maintaining the Top End was being weaponised by Washington DC in favour of American interests.

“The US is not preparing to go to war against China, it is preparing Australia to go to war against China,” he told a conference in Perth last week.

“It is preparing a number of countries in our region to be its proxies in such a war, as it has done using Ukraine in [the] war against Russia.”

“The likes of Sydney and Melbourne are a very long way away from Darwin, so people can often be psychologically removed from the problem. There is no physical presence of US military for most people in Australia, so they can remain complacent in grasping the reality of what is happening in our country.”