US President Barack Obama will use a visit to Australia next week to announce that the US will station Marines at a base in Darwin, Australian ministers indicated yesterday in a sign of heightened concern about China.
The Sydney Morning Herald said the new permanent military presence had been under consideration for some years as Washington looks to boost its Pacific Command, and senior Australian politicians did not deny the plan.
The US currently has only a limited deployment in longstanding ally Australia, including the Pine Gap Joint Defence Facility spy station near Alice Springs, and the move represents a significant geostrategic shift.
“It is important to wait for the president to visit Australia and for him and the prime minister to confirm what further defense cooperation arrangements we may have planned,” Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Kevin Rudd said.
“From the Australian perspective, here we are with a vast coastline, a population of just 23 million. It has always made national security sense to have a strong security alliance with America,” Rudd added.
Pentagon spokesman George Little declined to comment on the report, saying only: “Australia is an American friend and ally, and we will continue to work together to foster even stronger military ties with one another.”
Obama arrives in the country on Wednesday, visiting the capital, Canberra, before becoming the first US president to travel to the Northern Territory when he lands in Darwin.
The US will not be building a new base in the city, but instead will reportedly use the existing Robertson Barracks nearby.
The facility is home to about 4,500 Australian soldiers and will need to be expanded to cater for the US Marines, the paper said, citing sources who declined to detail how many troops or sailors would be rotating through.
The plan would intensify the 60-year military alliance between the two countries, which has played a crucial part in anchoring US influence in Asia.
In a speech to a national security workshop yesterday, Australian Minister for Defence Stephen Smith said: “This would potentially see more ship visits, more visiting aircraft and more training and exercising through northern Australia.”
It would also see “the prepositioning of United States equipment in Australia,” he added.
US Marines are already based at Okinawa in Japan and on Guam as the US’ chief combat force in the Pacific theater, and analysts said the Australian move was largely a response to the rise of China.
Beijing is boosting its military spending and capabilities and becoming increasingly assertive on the high seas where it claims sovereignty over essentially all of the South China Sea, a key global trading route.
Just weeks ago, China sent its first aircraft carrier on its maiden sea trials, underlining the scale of the country’s naval ambitions and sending jitters through Washington and Tokyo.
“China looms very large for both Australia and the US,” said Geoffrey Garrett, chief executive of the US Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, adding that the US strategy had two elements.
“The first concerns strengthening America’s alliances and friendships in the region as an insurance policy that China’s until now very peaceful rise changes course,” Garrett said.
“The second is trying to build a regional economic architecture for the Asia-Pacific based on the market principles of America and Australia that China over time will have powerful incentives to join, even if this entails domestic reforms it has been unwilling to undertake up until now,” he added.
Andrew Shearer, a former senior diplomat at the Australian embassy in Washington and now the director of studies at the Lowy Institute for International Policy, said the move was “not all about China.”
“Everyone draws the China connection, but it’s as much to do with the rise of India as well,” Shearer said.
“It’s not all about defense, but to be able to conduct disaster relief, counter piracy and keep shipping lanes free,” he said.
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