Australians believe climate change is the biggest security challenge facing their country and are largely relaxed about the rise of China, a government report released Wednesday showed.
The report, which canvassed community attitudes as part of a review of the country's defense forces, also found that Australians were interested in friendly relations with Indonesia.
The findings are in sharp contrast to a similar study conducted in the late 1990s, when Australians ranked Indonesia as one of the country's major threats.
The chairman of the Defence White Paper Community Consultation Program, former senator Stephen Loosley, said it was clear that Australians' attitude to Asia had changed over the past decade.
Loosley said the racist fear of "yellow peril" - a belief that Asia's largest population was a threat to Australia - was "on life support."
"I suspect that the notion of the yellow peril is now 40-50 years out of date," he said.
"There's a sense that Australia's geo-strategic circumstances are changing over time and Australians are cautious but there was no culpable sense that China was emerging as a threat...China was seen more in terms of being an economic partner."
The report also found that Australians were concerned about terrorism but it was no longer "front of mind" and that climate change was regarded as the most serious security threat.
"In particular, people expect that climate change will diminish food and water supplies, displace populations and trigger more frequent and more severe weather events," it found.
"In turn they anticipate an ongoing and increased demand for Australian Defence Force intervention in stabilization, humanitarian and disaster-relief operations in the region and a greater demand for ADF contributions to similar operations globally."