Inflatable boats crammed with
camouflaged soldiers power onto a remote beach crawling with Australian,
U.S. and Japanese commandos -- watched by officers from China.
Australian Army soldiers move to higher ground during an amphibious beach landing during Exercise Talisman Sabre 2015. Photographer: James Whittle/Australian Defence Navy Imagery Unit via Bloomberg
The drills in Australia’s remote Top End
are the biggest war games in the military calendar as 30,000 personnel
practice beach landings, parachuting and bush survival. Attended by
Chinese observers, they reflect the delicate dance playing out in a
region wracked by territorial tensions.
Tucked in the south of the Pacific,
Australia nonetheless plays a significant role in regional security. The
challenge for the country as a middle power in Asia is how to further
build strategic ties with Japan, a mutual U.S. ally, without alienating
China, its biggest trading partner.
The involvement of Japanese troops in
the Talisman Sabre drills at Dundee Beach, 140 kilometers (87 miles)
southwest of Darwin, risks annoying leaders in Beijing, according to
Hugh White, a professor of strategic studies at the Australian National
University in Canberra.
“The U.S., Japan and Australia are
behaving more and more like they have a trilateral alliance and the
reason for that is they want to respond to the challenge that China
poses to the U.S.-led order in Asia,” White said. “The Chinese are well
aware of this trend and they certainly don’t like it.”
As the exercises simulate a
mid-intensity “high-end” war, thousands of miles to the north Japan’s
government is moving to loosen the pacifist shackles of the country’s
postwar constitution.
Deep unease
Last week, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe
stared down opposition in parliament and public protests to push bills
through the lower house that let Japan potentially come to the aid of
allies. Abe’s efforts to build a bigger role for the military have
caused deep unease in a country still coming to terms with what happened
70 years ago during World War II.
New Zealand is also taking part for the
first time in the exercises, which feature more than 200 warplanes,
three submarines and 21 ships. Yet 73 years after Japanese bombing raids
killed hundreds of Darwin residents, it’s the presence of about 40
Japanese troops that’s garnering attention, alongside the handful of
observers from China.
“I know the Japanese Imperial Army
bombed Darwin,” Lieutenant Colonel Kuzuo Anamai says on the beach when
asked about the historical significance of Japan’s involvement in
Talisman Sabre. Anamai said he held “positive talks about the new
relationship” with local officials.
Treading warily
“The rise of China definitely drove
Japan to enhance defense relations with Australia,” said James Schoff, a
researcher for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Tokyo.
Along with the U.S., the nations need to be wary of making China the
focus of defense ties because “it increases the chance of
confrontation.”
China is embroiled in a long running
territorial spat with Japan in the East China Sea. It is conducting
large-scale land reclamation in the South China Sea closer to Australia,
waters that are also contested by a number of Southeast Asian nations
and contain some of the world’s most important shipping lanes.
The U.S. military and China’s coastguard
are coming into closer proximity in the South China Sea, while
Australia has also patrolled the area.
U.S. forces
Standing on Dundee Beach, where soldiers
hustled alongside bemused local residents and tourists heading out on
fishing trips, Commander of the U.S. 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force,
Lieutenant General John Wissler, welcomed Japan’s presence. “We are
better together than we will ever be individually,” Wissler said.
China is one of 30 nations that sent
observers, according to the Australian commander of joint operations,
Vice Admiral David Johnston.
“The exercise is quite transparent,”
Johnston said. “We are in regular contact with Chinese officials.
There’s nothing in terms of the activities to give them any cause for
concern.”
Sitting offshore, amphibious transport
dock the USS Green Bay launches another wave of inflatable combat rubber
raiding craft known as Zodiacs. Next to four boatloads of Marines
conducting on-water surveillance is a vessel with eight Japanese ground
self-defense force members.
Trade routes
The Japanese combined seamlessly with
the U.S. and Australian components of the operation, according to the
Green Bay’s commanding officer, Captain Kristy McCallum. The exercises
are vital to secure regional trade routes, she said.
“You have to have confidence that if
you’re doing this trade and you’re moving things about, that you’re
going to be able to do so without interference,” said McCallum, who’s
led operations in the past six months including maneuvers off the coast
of Japan, Korea and the Philippines. The exercises sent a strong message
“that we’re here and it matters,” she said.
Taking time out from selling cakes to
tourists thronging the beach to view the drills, local resident Libby
Bremner, 67, said she was pleased Japan was involved.
“The war was a long time ago,” she said. “There’s other baddies out there now.”
Source: Bloomberg