Australia boosts defence ties with Timor-Leste, seeks to curb China’s regional influence
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Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles (above) and Timor-Leste’s Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao signed a new defence framework on Oct 22.
PHOTO: REUTERS
- Australia and Timor-Leste signed a defence deal on Oct 22 to improve cyber and maritime security. Richard Marles said it will greatly increase defence exercises.
- Australia will give A$62 million for cybersecurity, maritime security, infrastructure, disaster relief and training. It will also provide three more police vessels.
- Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao said the deal will help fight organised crime and illegal fishing. The pact is part of Australia’s push to limit China’s security role in the Pacific.
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SYDNEY – Australia and Timor-Leste signed a defence deal on Oct 22 to boost cyber and maritime security as Canberra seeks to curb China’s influence among its island neighbours.
Australia is Timor-Leste’s largest defence and security partner, and the agreement will significantly increase defence exercises, Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles told reporters in Timor-Leste’s capital of Dili.
“This is a time to double down on friendship, to double down on family,” he said.
Australia will provide A$62 million (S$55.6 million) for cybersecurity, maritime security, infrastructure, disaster relief and training under a defence framework signed on Oct 22 by Marles and Timor-Leste’s Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao, according to a statement from Canberra.
Timor-Leste, around 700km north-west of Australia, gained independence from Indonesia in 2002.
Australia has said it is concerned at the rapid expansion of China’s navy and the presence of Chinese police in several Pacific Island countries.
As part of the agreement on Oct 22, Australia will also give East Timor three more police vessels, Marles said.
Gusmao told reporters the agreement will help Timor-Leste fight organised crime and illegal fishing.
Timor-Leste is situated close to the northern Australian city of Darwin, which hosts a rotating force of US Marines and is “a key location for the security of Australia’s northern approaches”, said Euan Graham, an expert associate with the Australian National Security College.
“It is vital for Canberra to ensure that Dili, at very least, does not provide strategic access to China,” he told AFP.
China’s Defence Ministry said in August that its Defence Minister Dong Jun had met Timor-Leste’s leaders in Dili and offered to “take military-to-military relations to a new level”.
Timor-Leste’s Foreign Minister Bendito dos Santos Freitas visited Moscow for talks in October.
Australia has recently struck a series of big defence and economic agreements with the Pacific Islands, including Vanuatu, Fiji and Papua New Guinea, designed to limit China’s security role.
The A$500 million Vanuatu agreement states no foreign military base or infrastructure can be built there, and Australia is the archipelago’s main policing partner.
But Vanuatu’s Police Minister rejected on Oct 21 that the deal would require Chinese police to be “phased out”, and Vanuatu’s police published images on social media of Chinese police training officers to use surveillance drones. AFP