Andrew Davies, an analyst with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, welcomed the announcement by Adm. Timothy Keating, head of the U.S. Pacific Command, that the United States and Australia had agreed to approach the Chinese Defense Ministry for trilateral exercises.

Keating told the Sydney Morning Herald that he and Australian defense force chief Angus Houston recently met and agreed that the United States and Australia "are anxious to engage" with the Chinese as soon as possible.

"We want to understand much better than we do now China's intentions. We would say, don't stand in isolation in the Pacific. China does publish a (defense) white paper but we find it to be less than fulfilling," he said.

Australia and New Zealand have already held limited trilateral exercises with China in 2007. Keating's suggestion was for exercises that might be only small naval and land activities initially. But these could be followed up with personnel exchanges.

He also expressly said that improving military ties with China would not harm U.S. relationships with India, Japan and South Korea.

All parties would benefit from such exercises because of the large number of natural disasters in the Pacific region where several military groups could be called upon to coordinate search-and-rescue activities.

Joint exercises might present China with opportunities to improve its intelligence of Western military forces, Davies told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

"Both sides would see how each other operate and there's always a bit of cat-and-mouse about these things as well," he said. "It would be very unusual for both sides to use the full range of their capabilities and use their radar in all of the modes that it can operate, for example, in combined exercises for that very reason."

China's ambassador to Australia, Junsai Zhang, also welcomed the idea of trilateral exercises. He told ABC that "any positive signs will help to improve the relationship, because this relationship is very solid."

The United States and increasingly Australia have been concerned about China's military buildup, in particular sophisticated weaponry and rockets. Australia has noted that China's military expansion was a main reason that it announced in May a $70 billion increase in defense spending.

Apart from military concerns, diplomatic relations have reached near record lows despite trade with China now nearly $27 billion annually. Recent pronouncements by Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, as well as Foreign Minister Stephen Smith, have noted the "bumpy" road now travelled by China and Australia.

The latest bump they referred to was an ongoing dispute with Beijing over the detention since July of Stern Hu, an Australian citizen working for mining giant Rio Tinto. Hu and three Chinese Rio executives are suspected of stealing commercial secrets.

For its part, Beijing has been upset over Australia granting a visa to Rebiya Kadeer, an ethnic Uighur leader now living in the United States. China accuses Kadeer of fomenting recent separatist unrest among the ethnic Muslim Uighur, a Turkic group in China's westernmost province of Xinjiang.

Share This Article With Planet Earth

del.icio.us	Digg	Reddit
YahooMyWeb	Google	Facebook

Related Links
Learn about the Superpowers of the 21st Century at SpaceWar.com
Learn about nuclear weapons doctrine and defense at SpaceWar.com

Memory Foam Mattress Review

SPACE MEDIA NETWORK PROMOTIONS Solar Energy Solutions Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison ... Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News