Keen to enhance its engagement with Asia pacific countries, Australia has said it will support India and Japan [Images] to become permanent members of a reformed United Nations Security Council to reflect the modern world.

However, Australian foreign minister Stephen Smith said Canberra did not want India to join the trilateral security dialogue involving Japan, Australia and the United States.

Calling for reform of the UN Security Council, Smith said the Security Council should reflect the modern world. "We need to be engaged much more in the United Nations and we also believe that the United Nations itself should take much more of a central role in international affairs," he told ABC Television.

"We have a strong view that there should be Security Council reform of the United Nations, that the Security Council should reflect the modern world, which is why we've suggested that both India and Japan should become permanent members of a reformed United Nations Security Council," he said.

Making it clear that it did not want to participate in the one off, four-way security dialogue involving India, Smith said Australia wanted to continue with the trilateral security dialogue between Japan, Australia and the US.

"Whilst we want to continue and proceed with the trilateral dialogue between Japan, Australia and the United States, we weren't proposing to take part in what had occurred as a one off which was a four-way conversation between ourselves, Japan, United States and India. I think that's a view that is shared by the other nation states concerned," he added.

Asked whether the quadrilateral security dialogue is aimed at encirclement of China, Smith said there were apprehensions from the Chinese side.

"I don't think there's any point in being sort of coy or shy about it. It's quite clear that China expressed concern at that time that this was somehow, as it was put I think at the time, an attempt or an exercise at containment," he said.

"Since then we've seen a much more positive and constructive dialogue and relationship between China and Japan. And the trip by the Indian prime minister to China was also regarded as very, very successful, a point that the Indian prime ministerial envoy (Shyam Saran) made to me in Perth in the last month," he said.