Naval base move to block China
Australia is to reopen a vast Pacific military base used by the United States in World War II as it seeks to counter Chinese expansionism in the region.
The Lombrum naval facility, carved out of jungle on Manus Island, in Papua New Guinea, is to be rebuilt amid fears that China is trying to establish control over key shipping and naval routes.
Australian defence officials have completed a secret study of the base and secured the support of Peter O’Neill, the prime minister of Papua New Guinea, for the project.
The Australian government has set aside tens of millions of dollars to redevelop the site to enable it to service large warships, both Australian and American. If the Chinese military were to gain control of Lombrum it would have a foothold in the Pacific 965 kilometres from Australia’s northern tip.
The government in Canberra, aware that the US navy is anxious to have warships permanently based in the region, is believed to have approached the Pentagon for its support on the redevelopment.
US warships, including aircraft carriers, already make regular calls to Australian ports but there is no permanent American naval facility in the country.
It is expected that Lombrum will be jointly controlled by Australia and Papua New Guinea but will also host the US navy. Three years ago, US navy chiefs admitted that they had begun discussions with the Australian defence force about the possibility of having American warships based in Australia.
At its wartime peak, Lombrum hosted 800 ships, four airfields, living quarters for 150,000 troops, fuel depots and a 3000-bed hospital. It was critical in the offensive by the Americans against Japan in 1944.
Alarm bells started ringing in Canberra when it emerged that China was funding the development of four ports in Papua New Guinea.
Marise Payne, Australia’s new foreign minister, declined to comment on the proposed reactivation of the base but said that Australia supported the island nation’s ambitions ‘‘for greater economic growth and development, including on Manus Island’’.
At a meeting of Pacific leaders last month she suggested that China was making one-sided deals with weaker Pacific island nations, some of which are now heavily indebted to Beijing, saying: ‘‘Countries will make their own sovereign decisions about arrangements they enter into . . . but the benchmark that Australia places on this is one of engagement and partnership.’’
Michael Shoebridge, director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and a former defence department official, said using Manus Island ‘‘makes good sense’’. He added: ‘‘It would help give the US a wider operating and support footprint in the Pacific, and give Australian naval forces a location 2000km away from Darwin and some 1600km north of Cairns, the two closest Royal Australian Navy bases.’’
Australia is all too aware of the vast amounts of money that China has been pouring into Papua New Guinea, which won independence from Australia 43 years ago. The nation will host the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit (Apec) in November, and President Xi Jinping will attend in person, arriving two days early for a state visit. China has paid for and built the multimillion-dollar convention centre for the meeting, as well as new highways in Port Moresby, the capital.
Xi is expected to use the summit of Asian and Pacific leaders to press six small Pacific nations – not including Papua New Guinea – to cut diplomatic ties with the self-governing island of Taiwan, which China insists is part of its territory. He is also expected to announce a free-trade agreement between China and Papua New Guinea, and possibly another substantial construction project to rival the one that created the first transport links between Port Moresby and the nation’s remote highlands.
Australia has done what it can to block China’s growing influence elsewhere in the Pacific. This year it stopped China rebuilding the Black Rock military camp on Fiji by itself becoming the sole foreign donor.
In June, it prevented Huawei, the vast Chinese telecommunications firm, laying internet cables linking the Solomon Islands, east of Papua New Guinea, with Australia. The fear was that Huawei was seeking to gain access to a broadband hub in Sydney, and that the security of the country’s communications network could be compromised.
China Harbour Engineering Company, a state-owned company, has a £23 million (NZ$45.6m) deal to upgrade Momote airport on Manus Island.
More than 1500 US Marines are stationed at a base in Darwin, northern Australia, as part of a six-month rotation programme. This figure will rise to 2500 by 2020. There are also plans to deploy an extra US Marines expeditionary unit on amphibious ships to the region next year, which will bring another 4000 US sailors and Marines to the western Pacific. – The Times