US to base Marines in Australia

US President Barack Obama will use a visit to Australia next week to announce that America will station Marines at a base in Darwin, reports said yesterday in a sign of heightened concern about China.
In a front page story, the Sydney Morning Herald said the new permanent military presence had been under consideration for some years as Washington looks to boost its Pacific Command.
The US currently has only a limited deployment in longstanding ally Australia, including the Pine Gap Joint Defence Facility spy station near Alice Springs, and the move would represent a significant geo-strategic shift.
Pentagon spokesman George Little declined to comment on the report, saying only: "Australia is an American friend and ally, and we will continue to work together to foster even stronger military ties with one another."
The facility is currently home to some 4,500 Australian soldiers and will need to be expanded to cater for the US Marines, the paper said, citing sources who declined to detail how many troops or sailors would be rotating through.
The Australian also reported the move, saying that other locations for a US presence were also possible, such as Perth in the west.
US Marines are already based at Okinawa in Japan and on Guam as America's chief combat force in the Pacific theatre, and analysts said the Australian move was largely a response to the rise of China.
Beijing is boosting its military spending and capabilities, and becoming increasingly assertive on the high seas where it claims sovereignty over essentially all of the South China Sea, a key global trading route.
Just weeks ago, China sent its first aircraft carrier on its maiden sea trials, underlining the scale of the country's naval ambitions and sending jitters through Washington and Tokyo.
Andrew Shearer, a former senior diplomat at the Australian embassy in Washington, said India's rise also played a part.