On the heels of US alliance talks, major military exercises, the AUKUS-infused drama of the Labor national conference, and the unifying World Cup joy of the Matildas, a visit by the German foreign minister may steal few Australian headlines this week.

Yet it is highly significant. Annalena Baerbock, a committed Green with a robust security agenda, is signalling German and wider European recognition that interests and values alike require greater engagement in the Indo-Pacific.

This sustains the momentum of prime minister Anthony Albanese’s travel last month to Berlin for stepped-up Australia-Germany ties and to Vilnius for the NATO summit.

There will be plenty of practical dialogue about climate, development and the energy transition. Moreover, Baerbock’s championing of a feminist foreign policy resonates well with the progressive imperative of Penny Wong’s First Nations diplomacy.

But the underlying message is strategic: a contemporary reimagining of how power relations can be leveraged to maximise the agency and security of middle-power democracies amid the imperial aggression of Russia and the longer-run authoritarian assertiveness of China.

Beijing’s cynical and continued enabling of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine confirms why we can’t allow geographic distance to minimise our partnership with likeminded nations, wherever they sit on the map.

Germany remains the world’s fourth largest economy (fifth in purchasing power parity), a technology and research powerhouse, a highly successful democracy, and, despite its problems, a leader in Europe.

And, as Chinese strategy currently sees the world, Europe remains the third most important pole of comprehensive power, after the United States and China, and ahead of Russia, Japan, India and the rest.

No wonder Beijing has been on a renewed diplomatic campaign this year to reduce growing German mistrust. This has been without much success. Berlin’s brand new China strategy declares that systemic rivalry and competition are increasingly defining the relationship, though partnership on global concerns such as climate remains a goal.

It is easy to underestimate or be sceptical of Germany as a global security player. Its military, by Berlin’s own assessment, is ill-prepared and under-equipped for a world where interstate warfare is a reality: hence a commitment last year to dramatically raise defence spending, already struggling against fiscal realities.

Until last year, the German record of energy dependence on Russia and complacency about Putin’s true ambitions was plainly troubling.

And even now, in a risk environment where plausible conflict involving China could shatter the global economy, the dependence of some major German companies, especially carmakers, on that authoritarian power as a key source of profit is a frightening vulnerability.

That said, when it comes to geopolitical risk exposure and a lack of plans B, the Australian iron ore industry still takes the prize.

The deeper story about 21st century Germany’s security stance is of awakening and change – or at least the beginning of what could well become a profound shift.

This makes Australia-Germany dialogue important and fruitful, even while the Albanese government rightly focuses on the development needs of our Pacific neighbours and what Wong terms ‘strategic equilibrium’ in the broader Indo-Pacific: a combination of deterrence and stabilising dialogue in meeting the China challenge.

Baerbock will draw insights from Wong’s relentlessly respectful neighbourhood engagement. Germany is serious about adding its independent weight and expertise as a development partner to our own role in the Pacific, providing island countries with options that are neither China nor the United States.

Her itinerary includes Fiji, where Germany is opening an embassy, and New Zealand, where the German message about the perils of economic reliance on an authoritarian giant will, one hopes, be noticed.

We too can learn much from the German experience. To their credit, the German centre-left coalition government has begun a difficult journey of resilience, rapidly weaning the nation off Russian gas and taking a lead in the European debate on how carefully to de-risk – not crudely decouple – economic relations with China.

The German government has recently released a national security strategy and a comprehensive China strategy. Successive Australian governments have judged that they need neither – or at least not as consolidated documents for public consumption.

The German China strategy is polite and constructive about all the transactional benefits of trade and investment with China, while striking a tone of disappointment about the way China has changed the game to make trust impossible.

The document is not alarmist or ideological: just matter-of-fact about how espionage, coercion, IP theft and influence operations are preventing the good relationship that might have been. It even talks openly about China’s push for hegemony in the Indo-Pacific.

Perhaps it is the indirect character of German grammar – even in translation - that helps in making these points sound less like accusations and more like plain statements of the reality Xi’s regime has wrought. They are hard to argue with.

The Albanese government’s China mantra – “cooperate where we can, disagree where we must and engage in the national interest” – makes perfect sense. The German strategy, which Baerbock and her activist foreign ministry were instrumental in driving, is a model of how a democracy can go further and be transparent with confidence about the specifics of a balanced China policy.

Professor Rory Medcalf AM is Head of the ANU National Security College.

This article originally appeared in The Australian Financial Review on 14 August.