Experts downplayed Wednesday a US radar system's threat to China, which the US military will deploy in Australia as part of its strategic shift toward Asia.
The plan to station the first US Air Force C-band radar and a space telescope in the Southern Hemisphere was unveiled Wednesday during the annual strategic talks between the US and Australia, in which Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta participated.
Panetta said the plan was a "major leap forward in bilateral space cooperation and an important new frontier in the US rebalance to the Asia-Pacific region," AFP reported.
The report also quoted an anonymous US defense official as saying that the deployment will enable the US to better track space debris, including China's rocket and missile tests.
However, analysts said the plan, as one part of the US rebalancing strategies, would pose no actual threat to China considering the country's modernized national defense forces.
"Distracted by the crises in the Middle East and domestic budget pressures, the US is seeking allies' help to jointly contain China," Gu Guoliang, a researcher with the Institute of American Studies under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times, adding that Australia cooperated with the US because it was dependent on advanced American military technologies.
Australian Defense Minister Stephen Smith said the transfer of the radar "will add considerably to surveillance of space debris in our part of the world," AFP reported.
But Gu noted that Australia would not ally with the US at the expense of its economic and trade ties with China.
Although a joint communiqué of the two countries signaled "increased rotations of US aircraft through northern Australia," it also said any enhanced US military presence "would require substantial further study and additional decisions by both capitals."
"Although the scope of monitoring will be greatly enlarged by the deployment, China can also take countermeasures if the monitoring interferes with our space activities," Xu Guangyu, a senior researcher at the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association, told the Global Times.
He also noted that even if the deployment enabled the US to monitor the orbit and speed of Chinese rockets and missiles, confidential information such as the workings of guidance systems would remain hidden.
As China is due to usher in its new leaders Thursday after the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Xu said the US was not likely to change its policy toward China before spending some time observing the new leadership's military defense policies.
According to Smith, discussions have been launched to grant the US future access to air bases in northern Australia as well as naval ports, including one in nearby Stirling, according to the AFP report.
Before Wednesday's meeting, Clinton underlined the "expanding engagement" of the US in Asia in a speech Tuesday at the University of Western Australia, vowing that the US was fully committed to its pivot to Asia over the long term, according to the report. She also insisted that the US supported the peaceful rise of China.
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