U.S. Casts Wary Eye on Australian Port Leased by Chinese
By JANE PERLEZ

DARWIN, Australia — The port in this remote northern Australian outpost is little more than a graying old wharf jutting into crocodile-infested waters. On a recent day, there was stifling heat but not a ship in sight. “Our pissy little port,” as John Robinson, a flamboyant local tycoon, calls it.

The financially hurting government of the Northern Territory was happy to lease it to a Chinese company in October for the bargain price of $361 million, raising money for local infrastructure projects.

“We are the last frontier; you take what you can get,” said Mr. Robinson, who is known as Foxy. “The Northern Territory doesn’t have the money for development. Australia doesn’t have it. We need the major players like China.”

But the decision has catapulted the port of Darwin into a geopolitical tussle pulling in the United States, China and Australia.

This month, the United States said it was concerned that China’s “port access could facilitate intelligence collection on U.S. and Australian military forces stationed nearby.”

It may not look like much, but the scruffy port is a strategic gateway to the South China Sea, where China is challenging the United States, and it serves as a host base for the United States Marines, who train here six months a year.

“There is a deep Chinese interest, driving interest, in understanding how Western military forces operate, right down to the fine details associated with how a ship operates, how it is loaded and unloaded, the types of signals a ship will emit through a variety of sensors and systems,” Peter Jennings, a former Australian defense official who is now the executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, told a parliamentary inquiry.

China has invested in more than two dozen foreign ports around the world, including a port in Djibouti adjacent to an American military base. But the 99-year Darwin lease was the first time the Chinese had bought into a port of a close American ally hosting American troops.

The Australian government did not consult with Washington, and the parliamentary inquiry showed that the corruption-plagued and unpopular government of the Northern Territory, of which Darwin is the capital, had rushed to lease the port to raise money for new projects before an election.

Australia’s defense secretary, Dennis Richardson, rejected the criticism, saying the Chinese could find out what they wanted by “sitting on a stool at the fish-and-chip shop on the wharf” and noting the vessels that entered the harbor.

The lease to the Chinese company, a shipping and energy conglomerate called Landbridge Group, highlighted the competing pressures in Australia between its more than 70-year alliance with the United States and its flourishing trade ties with China.

Australia’s attitude to China swings between greed and fear, people here say. On one hand, huge sales of minerals, property and food to China have kept the country recession proof, and have proved lucrative for the powerful Australian business community and the government.

On the other, the government relies on its deep defense ties with Washington, including close intelligence cooperation, to keep the sparsely populated country safe.

Despite its unimpressive real estate, the port here, which was hit with more Japanese bombs in 1942 than Pearl Harbor, has long had strategic value.

Australia is considering running freedom-of-navigation patrols of the South China Sea from here, according to the American State Department. And this month, the Pentagon asked the national government to base B-1 bombers in the Northern Territory.

American officials say they believe the lease by Landbridge was a strategic deal, not a commercial one. They cited the length of the lease and the fact that Landbridge paid 20 percent more than the two closest bidders.

Among the specific worries, Mr. Jennings said, is that fuel storage tanks used by the American military are inside the area leased to Landbridge. Future construction by the Australian navy for new facilities would be limited to parts of the harbor not under the company’s management, he said.

Australians appear to be worried as well. In an illustration of its pique, the United States commissioned a poll of Australians that found nearly half believed the lease posed “a lot of risk” to national security, and nine in 10 said it involved at least some risk.

The lease was reviewed by midlevel Defense Department officials, who found no problem, the department said. But the review is less stringent for private companies like Landbridge than for state-owned companies, a distinction that means little in China, where private companies often work hand in glove with the government.

The Australian government changed that policy on Friday, saying that from now on, the Federal Investment Review Board would assess all sales of state-owned critical infrastructure to private companies.

The Landbridge website cites the company’s close ties to the government. Its chairman and founder, Ye Cheng, was honored as one of the top “10 individuals caring about the development of national defense” by the Shandong provincial government in 2013.

Landbridge, which is based in Rizhao, Shandong Province, has worked with state-owned companies like China National Petroleum Corporation, which supplies oil to Landbridge and allows it to sell fuel at retail gasoline pumps under the corporation’s name.

“A strong enterprise does not forget to repay the country, while a profitable enterprise does not forget national defense,” the company says on its website.

In an interview in Beijing, Mr. Ye said the investment fit into the company’s strategy to expand its shipping and energy interests and served China’s foreign policy goal known as One Belt, One Road.

That policy is President Xi Jinping’s signature measure to encourage Chinese investment across Asia into Europe. Participating companies are honored as doing the right thing for China.

“Australia needs China, China needs Australia,” said Mr. Ye, who was in Beijing as a delegate to the annual Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, an advisory body to the government.

He dismissed security concerns about his company’s running the port as “paranoia.”

“You Americans think too much,” he said. “You can think what you want, but this is about port-to-port business.”

The port manager, Terry O’Connor, said Australians would continue to run the port. He said there were no plans to bring in Chinese employees.

Mr. O’Connor said shipping movements in and out of the harbor, including of the 100 or so naval vessels each year, mostly Australian and American, would be kept in the company’s Australian computer systems, which are not linked to the Chinese headquarters.

Despite these assurances, American officials say they are keeping a close eye on Darwin. They are also watching to see if Chinese companies buy other important infrastructure in Australia.

A strategic port in Fremantle, Western Australia, where United States warships frequently tie up has been put out for bids.

When President Obama met the Australian prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, in Manila in November, he registered his displeasure at not being informed about the Darwin lease.

According to a senior American official, Mr. Obama said, “Next time, please let us know ahead of time.”

陸企租澳港口 美跳腳軍情外洩

澳洲北領地（Northern Territory）政府去年十月宣布，當地達爾文港的租賃權由中國大陸企業嵐橋集團以三點六一億美元（約台幣一百零三億元）取得，租約長達九十九年。紐約時報報導，這項決定讓這座偏遠的澳洲港口陷入美中澳三方的地緣政治角力，美國尤其擔心。

美國本月稍早曾說，擔心中方租得該港口，恐有助其收集在附近駐紮的美國與澳洲軍方情報。

達爾文港雖然老舊，卻是進入南海的戰略通道，且為美軍陸戰隊在澳洲的主要基地，美軍一年當中有六個月會在此地進行訓練。

批評人士表示，中方租得此港，有如買了一個可監視美國與澳洲海軍行動的前排座位。

曾任職澳洲國防部的澳洲戰略政策研究所所長詹寧斯表示，中方極有興趣瞭解西方軍事力量如何操作，如船艦的航行、卸載及透過各種感應器和系統所發出信號類型等細節。

大陸目前在全球投資的外國港口有廿多個，包括附近有美軍基地的非洲吉布地港，但達爾文港卻是大陸頭一次從美國親密盟友手中拿下有美軍駐紮的港口使用權。

澳洲政府並未與華府協商此事，國會調查也顯示，受貪汙醜聞困擾且不得民心的北領地政府，趕在大選前將達爾文港出租，以為當地新的基礎設施計畫籌措財源。

澳洲國防部長理查森反駁上述批評，稱中國人只要坐在碼頭上賣炸魚薯條店內，就能看到有哪些船艦進入港口。言下之意，中方根本不需要為了蒐集這些訊息而租下達爾文港。

美國官員則說，陸企投標金額比對手高出逾兩成，且租期這麼久，顯示此舉具戰略意義，並非單純商業投資。

紐時指出，澳洲與大陸經貿關係漸趨熱絡，和美國則有傳統交情，這次租港爭議凸顯澳洲夾在中間受到的壓力。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/21/world/australia/china-darwin-port-landbridge.html

紐約時報中文版翻譯：
http://cn.nytimes.com/china/20160321/c21darwin/zh-hant/

Video：Australia Reviews State Asset Sale Rules
http://nyti.ms/1R97PyW

2016-03-22．聯合報．A13．國際．編譯陳韋廷