China, US important to Aust: Shorten

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten says a Labor government will maintain strong relationships with China and the US, insisting there's no need to choose between the two.

"I do not subscribe to the idea of an inescapable binary `choice' between our alliance with the United States and our growing relationship with China," he told the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Canberra on Tuesday.

Mr Shorten said Labor was committed to a defence funding target of two per cent of GDP and ensuring the next generation of submarines were built, maintained and sustained in Australia.