Australia Building Port for U.S. Marines to Face China

Date: 24 June 2019 - 21:42

News ID: ۶۷۳۶۸

SYDNEY (Dispatches) -- Australia is planning to build a new deep-water port on its northern coast able to accommodate U.S. Marine deployments as part of efforts to counter China's growing presence in the region, the ABC reported Monday.
The national broadcaster quoted multiple defense and government officials as saying the facility would be about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Darwin, capital of the Northern Territory, which controversially leased its own port to a Chinese operator in 2015.
The Darwin port already includes military facilities and hosts visiting U.S. ships, but the ABC said the new port would offer large amphibious warships a more discreet and less busy base of operations.
U.S. Marine units of more than 2,000 troops regularly rotate through Darwin as part of the close military cooperation between the two allies.
Both Australia and the United States have been building up their military presence across the western Pacific to counter moves by China to gain influence across the strategically vital region, notably by creating armed outposts on disputed islands in the South China Sea.
As part of that effort, Washington and Canberra recently announced plans to build a joint military base on Papua New Guinea's Manus Island, northeast of Australia.
The ABC said the new Australian port at Glyde Point would include commercial and industrial operations in addition to facilities for military activities.
An announcement concerning the port could come in the next few weeks to coincide with the height of the bi-annual Talisman Sabre U.S.-Australian military exercise in mid-July, ABC said.
"The Americans are clearly not withdrawing from the Indo-Pacific, whether it's because of their strategic competition with China or more generally," said Rory Medcalf from the Australian National University.
The Pentagon said in a report last month that China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) could help the Chinese navy gain access to "selected foreign ports to pre-position the necessary logistics support to sustain naval deployments in waters as distant as the Indian Ocean, Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean.”
The project aims to link China by sea and land with southeast and central Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa, through an infrastructure network on the lines of the ancient Silk Road.