Australia commits US$44 million to boost East Timor’s cyber, maritime security

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, Defence Minister Richard Marles told reporters.

“This is a time to double down on friendship, to double down on family,” he said in East Timor’s capital Dili.

Australia will provide A$62 million (US$44 million) for cybersecurity, maritime security, infrastructure, disaster relief and training, under a defence framework signed on Thursday by Marles and East Timor’s Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao, according to a statement from Canberra.

East Timor, around 700km (440 miles) northwest of Australia, gained independence from Indonesia in 2002.

Australia has expressed concerns over the rapid expansion of China’s navy and the presence of Chinese police in several Pacific Island countries.

As part of Thursday’s agreement, Australia will also give East Timor three additional police vessels, according to Marles. Gusmao told reporters the agreement would help East Timor fight organised crime and illegal fishing.

Euan Graham, an expert associate with the Australian National Security College, said Canberra was facing difficulty “matching its recent cut-through in the Pacific” in Southeast Asia.

East Timor 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”, according to Graham.

“It is vital for Canberra to ensure that Dili, at very least, does not provide strategic access to China,” he said.

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

East Timor’s Foreign Minister Bendito dos Santos Freitas visited Moscow for talks this month.

Australia has recently struck a series of defence and economic agreements with 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 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.