Australia boosts defence ties with East Timor

Australia and East Timor signed a defence deal on Thursday to boost cyber and maritime security as Canberra seeks to curb China’s influence among its island neighbours.

Australia is East Timor’s largest defence and security partner and the agreement will significantly increase defence exercises, Australian defence minister Richard Marles told reporters in the country’s capital of Dili.

“This is a time to double down on friendship, to double down on family,” he said.

East Timor, around 700km north-west of Australia, gained independence from Indonesia in 2002.

China’s defence ministry said in August its defence minister Dong Jun had met with East Timor’s leaders in Dili and offered to “take military-to-military relations to a new level”.

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.

Marles and East Timor’s Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao signed a new defence framework on Thursday that will see Australia provide A$62 million (US$43.56 million) for cybersecurity, maritime security, infrastructure, disaster relief and training, an Australian statement said.

Australia will also give East Timor three additional police vessels, Marles said.

Gusmao told reporters the agreement will help East Timor fight organised crime and illegal fishing.

Australia has recently struck a series of big defence and economic agreements with Pacific Islands including Vanuatu, Fiji and Papua New Guinea, designed to limit China’s security role.

The 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 Wednesday that the deal would require Chinese police to be “phased out”, and Vanuatu’s police force published images on social media of Chinese police training officers to use surveillance drones.