CANBERRA, Australia ? Signaling U.S. determination to counter a rising China, President Barack Obama said Wednesday he will send military aircraft and up to 2,500 Marines to northern Australia for a training hub to help allies and protect American interests across Asia. He declared the U.S. is not afraid of China, by far the biggest and most powerful country in the region.
China immediately questioned the U.S. move and said it deserved further scrutiny.
While relatively small, the expanded American military footprint would be a visible response to a growing China, whose relationship with the United States is at once cooperative and marked by tensions over currency, human rights and military might. Virtually everything Obama is doing on his nine-day trip across the Asia-Pacific region has a Chinese subtext.
China's military spending has increased threefold since the 1990s to about $160 billion last year, and its military recently tested a new stealth jet fighter and launched its first aircraft carrier. A congressional advisory panel on Wednesday said China's buildup is focused on dealing with America's own defenses and exploiting possible weaknesses.
The panel, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, urged the White House and Congress to look more closely at China's military expansion and pressed for a tougher stance against what it called anticompetitive Chinese trade policies.
Obama announced the new security plans in a joint news conference with Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard. On Thursday, addressing the Australian Parliament, he was emphasizing his intention to stay invested across Asia and Australia despite budget cuts back home.
The U.S. and smaller Asian nations have grown increasingly concerned about China's claims of dominion over Pacific waters and the revival of old territorial disputes, including confrontations over the South China Sea. China says it has sovereignty over the vast sea.
Responding to questions at the news conference Obama said, "The notion that we fear China is mistaken."
China was immediately leery of the prospect of an expanded U.S. military presence in Australia. Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said there should be discussion as to whether the plan was in line with the common interests of the international community.
Obama said that the United States has an interest in supporting a peaceful and rising China but that the Asian power must play by world rules. When it does not, Obama said, "we will send a clear message to them that we think that they need to be on track."
With military bases and tens of thousands of troops in Japan and South Korea, the United States has maintained a significant military presence in Asia for decades. Australia lies about 5,500 miles south of China, and its northern shores would give the U.S. easier access to the South China Sea, a vital commercial route.
The plan outlined by Obama will allow the United States to keep a sustained force on Australian bases and position equipment and supplies there, giving the U.S. ability to train with allies in the region and respond more quickly to humanitarian or other crises.
About 250 U.S. Marines will begin a rotation in northern Australia starting next year, with a full force of 2,500 military personnel staffing up over the next several years. The United States will bear the cost of the deployment and the troops will be shifted from other deployments around the world. Having ruled out military reductions in Asia and the Pacific, the Obama administration has three main areas where it could cut troop strength: Europe, the Middle East and the U.S.
U.S. officials said the pact was not an attempt to create a permanent American military presence in Australia.
Australia's Gillard said, "We are a region that is growing economically. But stability is important for economic growth, too." She said that "our alliance has been a bedrock of stability in our region."
Obama's visit is intended to show the tightness of that relationship with an ally that has fought alongside the United States in most every conflict since World War I.
Appearing a bit jag-lagged after a 10-hour flight from Hawaii, Obama had a packed day-and-a-half in Australia, his first trip here as president after canceling two previous tries. After addressing Parliament, Obama was flying to the northern city of Darwin, where some of the Marines deploying to Australia next year will be based.
In addition to the expanded Marine presence, more U.S. aircraft will rotate through Australia as part of an agreement between the nations' air forces.
The only American base currently in the country is the joint Australia-U.S. intelligence and communications complex at Pine Gap in central Australia. But there are hundreds of U.S. service personnel in the country on exchange.
Air combat units also use the expansive live bombing ranges in Australia's sparsely populated north in training rotations of a few months, and occasionally naval units train off the coast. But training exercises involving ground forces are unusual.
Obama had scrapped two earlier visits, once to stay in Washington to work for passage of his health care bill, and again after the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
"I was determined to come for a simple reason: The United States of America has no stronger ally than Australia," he said.
Obama's arrival followed a flight from Hawaii that took him across the international dateline.
At one point he said, "I'm trying to figure out what time zone I'm in here."
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Associated Press writers Erica Werner and Rod McGuirk in Canberra contributed to this report.
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