Tony Abbott heads to Myanmar for regional security talks

Prime Minister Tony Abbott will travel to Myanmar on Wednesday for talks on regional security.

After two days in Beijing for the APEC economic talks, Mr Abbott's focus will shift when he arrives in Nay Pyi Taw for the annual East Asia Summit.

China's simmering territorial disputes with its neighbours and Myanmar's democratic reforms are expected to feature in the prime minister's discussions.

But Mr Abbott will only be on the ground in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, for about 24 hours.

He will leave on Thursday afternoon to host world leaders as they start arriving in Australia ahead of this weekend's G20 leaders' summit.

In China, Mr Abbott's talks were largely focused on trade.

However, he also had a tense meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the MH17 disaster and discussed the fight against Islamic State in Iraq with US President Barack Obama.