<![CDATA[As US and China compete in the Indo-Pacific, Australia pledges to boost East Timor naval base]>
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison pledged to invest in naval infrastructure in East Timor and provide an undersea internet cable to boost the island nation's communications services as he visited Dili on Friday.
The package is part of Canberra's latest efforts to be a better neighbour to East Timor, as the United States and its allies jockey with China for influence in Asia.
Morrison said his government would fund an upgrade to the Hera Naval Base on the country's north coast, near its capital, to support the operation of two Guardian class patrol boats Australia will donate in 2023. Australia will also link the nation to an Australian undersea fibre optic cable system, and pay for the initial engineering and design work, according to a government statement.
Morrison also formalised a long-awaited agreement on a maritime boundary between the two nations that lie just a few hundred kilometres apart, as East Timor marked the 20th anniversary of a referendum that won it independence.
The boundary agreement paves the way for East Timor " where more than 40 per cent of its 1.3 million people live below the poverty line " to develop the energy resources in the Greater Sunrise field, estimated to be worth US$50 billion at today's prices.
"This is a new chapter for Australia and Timor-Leste that is based on our shared respect, interests and values," said Morrison.
East Timor researcher at Australia National University (ANU) Ivo Mateus Goncalves said the boundary agreement was "a new phase of reconciliation".
"From here, we can strengthen the relationship," he said.
But Australian National University international maritime law expert Donald Rothwell warned the treaty still contains "significant wild cards", including exactly how East Timor and Australia will work out the "joint development authority" to tap the Greater Sunrise field, which contains an estimated five trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 200 million barrels of oil.
Developing Greater Sunrise has been cast by Dili as a critical step in cementing its sovereignty, by reducing its dependence on foreign aid, which amounts to US$2.8 billion each year.
East Timor's revenue from existing petroleum projects has tanked from nearly US$4 billion in 2012 to less than half a billion in 2017, and its sovereign wealth fund, which foots nearly 90 per cent of the state budget, has stagnated at US$16 billion for the past four years.
Developing the Greater Sunrise project could drain what remains of the fund, and Foreign Minister Dionisio da Costa Babo Soares last week said the nation is open to all international partners.
This has fuelled questions about where investors might come from.
Last year, Shell and ConocoPhillips sold their stakes in the project back to state gas company Timor Gap, after they could not agree with government negotiators, led by independence leader and former president Xanana Gusmao, on how to construct the project.
East Timor's Foreign Minister Dionisio da Costa Babo Soares and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Bangkok. Photo: Xinhua alt=East Timor's Foreign Minister Dionisio da Costa Babo Soares and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Bangkok. Photo: Xinhua
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi earlier this month expressed China's interest in collaborating with East Timor on petrochemical development.
In April, state-owned China Civil Engineering Construction company signed a US$943 million contract with Timor Gap to build liquefied natural gas plant facilities in Beaco on the country's southern coast. China has donated the buildings which house the Dili government and ministry of defence, and earlier this month donated an estimated US$3 million worth of material and supplies to the East Timor Defence Force.
Less than 700km away from Beaco, the US has allocated more than US$300 million for a military installation off Darwin, Australia.
Bec Strating, senior politics lecturer at La Trobe University in Melbourne, said: "Canberra will be looking on concerned about the prospect of China funding a whole lot of development just a few hundred kilometres from Darwin."
East Timor soldiers march during an independence ceremony on 20 August 2019. Photo: EPA-EFE alt=East Timor soldiers march during an independence ceremony on 20 August 2019. Photo: EPA-EFE
BENEVOLENT NEIGHBOUR?
Australia's move to boost its image as a good neighbour comes as newly declassified US national security documents reveal the government, led by then-Prime Minister John Howard, was reluctant to support Dili's sovereignty.
Australia was the only nation to formally recognise Indonesia's occupation of East Timor, despite the latter having declared sovereignty in 1975 following centuries of Portuguese colonisation. Under the maritime boundaries Jakarta and Canberra had established at the time, most of the lucrative undersea resources fell in Australia's waters.
"Australia's security interests are intimately tied with those of its neighbourhood," said Strating. "That explains why it's willing to do the development work. But when it comes to the oil and gas resources, it has been driven by commercial interests."
In a briefing on the documents, Bradley Simpson, director of the Indonesia project at the National Security Archive in Washington, said Indonesia's violent occupation resulted in the deaths of as many as 180,000 Timorese.
When Indonesia's then President BJ Habibie announced a United Nations-sponsored referendum, Australia initially supported autonomy rather than independence, the documents showed.
The papers also revealed the US and its partners were aware the Indonesian military had backed militia groups that threatened more violence if East Timor voted for independence.
More than four in 10 people in East Timor live below the poverty line. Photo: EPA-EFE alt=More than four in 10 people in East Timor live below the poverty line. Photo: EPA-EFE
After the vote, militias killed more than 1,500 Timorese civilians and displaced nearly half the population, gutting Dili in the process. Australia led the UN peacekeeping mission to stop the violence and uphold the nation's independence, in its largest force deployment since the Vietnam war.
Australia's then-foreign minister Alexander Downer ahead of the referendum had said the government could not confirm the Indonesian military was arming the militias, and downplayed the risk of violence. This week, Downer told the Australian Broadcasting Company that claims Australia had lobbied against a peacekeeping force were "plain wrong".
Since East Timor finally gained independence in 2002, Australia has been its biggest source of aid, giving an average of US$80 million annually, even as both sides were locked in discussions over the maritime boundary.
The Presidential Palace in Dili. Photo: EPA-EFE alt=The Presidential Palace in Dili. Photo: EPA-EFE
During negotiations in 2004, the Australian government bugged key East Timor government offices to gain the upper hand, and is now prosecuting the intelligence official who revealed this, known as Witness K, for revealing state secrets.
With both countries now seeming to move forward on how to divvy up their shared resources, Goncalves at ANU said Dili should spend its financial resources on basics that are important to Timorese people " like education, agriculture and health.
"The government has been focused more on the sea rather than the land, prioritising building up large infrastructure projects, rather than paying attention to the well-being of the people," said Goncalves.
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
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