The admiral in charge of United States preparations for any conflict with China is expected to visit Australia next week as the Albanese government condemns Beijing for the latest “dangerous” incident involving military aircraft over the South China Sea.

Defence officials on Thursday revealed a Chinese J-16 jet fighter had released flares within 30 metres of an RAAF P-8 Poseidon while it was conducting “routine surveillance” of the contested waterways.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton accused the government of waiting until after Question Time had concluded in parliament on Thursday to release the details.

“It’s obviously very concerning and it’s incredibly unsafe, so the prime minister, the deputy prime minister didn’t say anything yesterday in parliament but waited until parliament had finished, and then Richard Marles did a press conference to provide details, so we haven’t had a briefing as yet,” he told Channel Nine.

But Mr Marles has told the ABC the government spent two days investigating the unsafe and unprofessional interaction with the Chinese military before making the details public.

“We’ve made this public about two days after it occurred, that’s actually relatively swift in terms of how we do these processes,” he said.

“But it’s important that you get your facts right when you make an attribution of this kind and we don’t do it lightly.”

Shortly after the incident on Tuesday, formal complaints were also made to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), but overnight Beijing claimed the RAAF surveillance plane had “violated China’s sovereignty and undermined China’s national security”.

“The Chinese side took legitimate, lawful, professional and restrained measures to expel the airplane,” foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told reporters.

Anthony Albanese on Friday said the government has made representations to the Chinese government “through normal diplomatic channels”.

“We regard this action as unsafe and we’ve made that clear, in public as well as in private,” he said.

ADF was monitoring warships

At the same time as the mid-air incident, the Australian Defence Force was monitoring the passage of three Chinese warships which are now stationed off the north-east coast after reportedly completing combat exercises in the Pacific Ocean.

HMAS Arunta and a P-8 Poseidon are understood to be closely tracking three vessels from the PLA-Navy, which are currently operating in the Coral Sea, within Australia’s exclusive economic zone.

According to Chinese media reports, the PLA-Navy frigate, cruiser and replenishment vessel conducted a “real-combat” exercise in an unspecified part of the Pacific Ocean over the past month.

As both sides accuse each other of unprofessional military conduct, the ABC has learnt the commander of the United States Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM), Admiral Samuel Paparo, is next week scheduled to have high-level meetings in Canberra.

While visiting Germany this week to outline the Pentagon’s proposal to end the war in Ukraine, new US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth signalled the Trump administration’s renewed focus on the Indo-Pacific region.

“America as the leader of the free world defending American interests is going to need to make sure we’re focused properly on the Communist Chinese and their ambitions in the Indo-Pacific, and as I mentioned before, around the world,” he said.