SYDNEY - Australia said on Wednesday (April 26) it would start domestic manufacture of guided missiles by 2025, two years sooner than expected, in a wide-ranging shakeup of defence arrangements to focus on long-range strike capability.

On Monday, the Labor government said it accepted the recommendations of a defence review that said China had launched the largest military buildup of any country since the end of World War Two without transparency, and major power competition had "potential for conflict" in the Indo Pacific.