Defense and security relations between Australia and the Philippines are currently at a “high point,” Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Richard Marles said Sunday.

Marles issued the prognosis in a meeting with Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. at the start of their bilateral meeting on the 21st International Institute for Strategic Studies Shangri-La Dialogue.

“Our relations with the Philippines are at their high point. We very much welcome this development,” Marles told Teodoro.

Teodoro, in response, said the Philippines is looking forward to bringing its defense and security relations with Australia to “greater heights.” Both officials also joined the call for strengthening the rules-based international order in the Indo-Pacific region.

Last month, the defense chiefs of the United States, Australia, Japan, and the Philippines made a pact in to strengthen their cooperation amid escalating tensions in the West Philippine Sea and the broader South China Sea.