Chinese defence funding for Pacific viewed warily
Updated
Australian military intervention helped guarantee East Timor its independence and still helps underpin its security, but that does not mean the government in East Timor's capital, Dili, is about to put all its security in the hands of just one regional friend.
East Timor has received patrol boats from Beijing, and China has begun constructing the country's new military headquarters.
Last week on Pacific Beat we had the opportunity to speak with the leader of the Australian Greens party, Bob Brown, about his thoughts on China's increasing funding in the Pacific.
Mr Brown, along with several regional commentators, are watching developments warily in Australia.
Presenter: Adam Connors, with reporting by Australia Network's Jeff Waters
Speaker: Bob Brown, leader of the Australian Greens; Professor Hugh White, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at Australian National University; Fergus Hanson, Lowy Institute; CCTV newsreader; Frank Bainimarama, Fiji's interim prime minister and coup leader
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BROWN: It concerns me to see that Australia has so much more to do in terms of economic relationships with places such like Fiji and Timor Leste again who are turning to look at what China has to offer. So they can. But Australia has to be very well aware of that and to see what better they can do.
COUTTS: The leader of the Australian Greens party, Bob Brown, the party - with the independents - holding the balance of power in Australia's still undecided general election.
Australian military intervention helped guarantee East Timor its independence and still helps underpin its security. But that does not mean the government in East Timor's capital, Dili, is about to put all its security in the hands of just one regional friend. East Timor - otherwise known as Timor Leste - has received patrol boats from Beijing, and China has begun constructing the country's new military headquarters. As Mr Brown says these are developments being watched warily in Australia.
Adam Connors reports.
CONNORS: It certainly wasn't an unusual sight in the Pacific, or Southeast Asia for that matter. China helping turn the first sod at the site of a new, big East Timorese government building. Like the rest it will, no doubt, be built by Chinese labourers using Chinese materials. But this will be a military headquarters for a new, independent nation, now run by a former rebel soldier.
Professor Hugh White of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at Australian National University.
WHITE: I think it is certainly something Australia needs to pay attention to. Australians have always, going right back into the 18th century, been very sensitive to the idea of major powers projecting force into our part of the world, establishing a presence in our immediate neighbourhood that might be used as a sort of a springboard for putting pressure on us and the fact that China as it emerges and the fact that China is starting to build relationships in our immediate neighbourhood will naturally raise these traditional concerns in Australia's mind.
CONNORS: In his thank you speech, East Timor's Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao said...
GUSMAO (TRANSLATION): We are firmly committed to incrementing bilateral cooperation in the military area with friendly countries that provide us with uninterested support. There is nothing that would prevent us from requesting and accepting it, nor would it be legitimate for anyone to seek to constrain our options.
CONNORS: Fergus Hanson of the Lowy Institute writes extensively on regional stability in the Pacific.
HANSON: The military assistance that China has offered to small countries in the Pacific has been quite limited, and they've been quite cautious in their approach, it's been limited to a handful of military exchanges, the refurbishment of military hospitals, the building of the headquarters as we've seen now in East Timor, rather than the provision of lethal assistance like arms sales of of having large numbers of troop exchanges for example.
CONNORS: Of course, it's not the first time China's constructed a government building in the developing world. It's made a habit of the practice. In East Timor alone it's constructed the President's Palace, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a residential complex for soldiers. Like others in the region it's aimed at pleasing the elite. Using Chinese materials and mainly Chinese labour.
Fergus Hanson again.
HANSON: The trouble is with issues around the side of that - of whether China shouldn't be trying to employ more local labourers and there's also been some concerns raised around the region of the quality of Chinese infrastructure projects if you travel around to some of the infrastructure projects.
CONNORS: China has also supplied East Timor with military hardware in the form of two patrol boats. China also has to train the crews, and this builds military relationships as Hugh White observes.
WHITE: Australia understands this perfectly well because we've been doing the same thing for years.
CONNORS: Fiji's military leader Frank Bainimarama has had to set up his own regional leaders grouping - a quite successful one at that - so as to exclude and alienate Australia.
This, taken from from a China Central Television news bulletin, shows how Fiji is cosying-up to China.
CCTV NEWSREADER: 2010 Marks the 35th anniversary of the diplomatic relations between Fiji and China. Fiji Premier Frank Bainimarama has visited the Chinese expo along with his entourage.
BAINIMARAMA: If you visit the Fiji stand then you will experience our art and our culture, and the Fijian artefacts which are for sale at the pavilion retail shop.
CONNORS: China doesn't mind that Fiji is run by the military. So it's not attached democratic conditions to aid. Chinese and Taiwanese fishing boats fill Pacific harbours. And infrastructure - from small bridges to huge hydroelectric schemes - are being built. It comes at a time of a large geopolitical shift in the Pacific. China and the US aren't on the best of terms thanks to the proximity of military exercises to China. And, Fergus Hanson says, Beijing's enthusiasm to claim much of the South China Sea.
HANSON: I think we need to be careful about the level of Chinese engagement in the region. China certainly has stepped up its engagement in our immediate region in the Pacific, but it doesn't really have a set plan and there's no real indication that China's trying to set itself up militarily in the region.
WHITE: Whether or not what China's doing is actually threatening toward us does of course depend on what's happening in the future there's nothing in the world today that would suggest a Chinese strategic engagement in a place like East Timor threatens Australia - whether it threatens us in the future depends on the way the world develops.
