The Department of Defence Secretary, Greg Moriarty and the Chief of the Defence Force, General Angus Campbell, are the two Australians leading the talks.

Michael Shoebridge, the director of Defence, Strategy and National Security at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said Australia had to recognise that since the dialogue had begun, China had adopted a more confrontational posture in the region, and the talks should reflect that.

“Under General Secretary Xi Jingping's leadership, the Chinese state is now using its military - the PLA - to advance its strategic goals in ways that are against Australia's, and many other nations', security interests,” he told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

“The use of the PLA to occupy contested territory in the South China Sea, in contravention of international law, is the most graphic example of this," Mr Shoebridge said. "A further example is Chinese defence minister General Wei's statement at this year's Shangri La meeting that the PLA's massacre of Chinese citizens in Tiananmen Square in June 1989 was 'correct policy'. A third is Beijing's efforts to grow PLA presence in the South Pacific and South East Asia to allow it to exert more military power, including in Australia's immediate region.

“So, Australia's defence relations with the PLA needs to change to take account of the new strategic reality that the Chinese state is using the PLA in an aggressive and assertive way that is against Australia's national interests," he said.

“That means that the dialogue cannot now be one that, to quote the Defence media release on the dialogue, 'builds trust and understanding between the militaries of Australia and China' unless the way Beijing is using the PLA changes, and that seems unlikely.

“Instead, the Australian officials at the dialogue will need to politely but clearly convey the point that it is not in Australia's national or security interests to engage with the PLA in any ways that build PLA capability or that convey deeper understandings of Australian military capability that may give the PLA insights into vulnerabilities or key capabilities of value in warfighting.

“This may sound confrontational, however, it is very clear that the PLA will in no way engage with Australia to build Australian military capability or convey such deeper knowledge of the PLA. So, our Australian officials would simply be describing an Australian policy approach to our defence relationship that reciprocates the PLA approach."