The Age, Australia's plan to join the United States missile defence shield has raised strong objections from China, which believes the plan could spark a new arms race.
Diplomatic sources confirmed that Beijing was upset by the plans when briefed privately by Australia's ambassador Alan Thomas. China is also concerned the shield could be used to protect Taiwan.
China's concerns were echoed yesterday by Indonesia, which urged Australia not to try to isolate itself from the region. “Our view has always been research into such a system opens the potential for a new round of arms race, it could be potentially destabilising,” government spokesman Marty Natelgawa said.
He said Australia had briefed Indonesia earlier this year and while Indonesia respected Australia's right to sign up to the system, he predicted it would send shock waves through the region.
“As far as Indonesia is concerned, destabilisation is not something that's inevitable but from where we stand at the moment we see these things offer more uncertainties or complications rather than solutions.”
He said Indonesia expected it would learn more about the decision when Foreign Minister Alexander Downer arrives for a visit this weekend.
The Greens yesterday sought a Senate inquiry into the $US100 billion ($A136 billion) “son of star wars” program. Leader Bob Brown said the program was “a terrible initiative that threatens to create a new nuclear arms race involving China, Russia, India, Pakistan and North Korea”.
But Mr Downer said a missile shield was needed in the long-term to defend Australia.
“We obviously are concerned, particularly in the medium-term, about the possibility of long-range ballistic missiles being fired at our allies or at Australia or at our troops in the field and we have to have some capacity to defend ourselves,” he said.
Mr Downer said it was not yet determined whether Australia would have a ground-based missile defence system on home soil. A defensive system could be placed on navy ships, he said.
He conceded that China's response had been unenthusiastic. “I don't think you could say they've ever been supportive of this particular proposal,” he said.
But Mr Downer said any suggestion of a regional arms race was absurd. “This is designed to deal with missiles from rogue states, small numbers of missiles, not large numbers of missiles.”
The Pentagon yesterday welcomed Australia's decision to join the US missile defence system but US critics questioned whether the financial and political cost had been fully spelt out to Australians. They say the rogue states the system is aimed at should be defined if taxpayers are going to pay for it.
“We are not going to be fighting generic 'rogue states', we are going to be fighting specific countries, and for specific political objectives,” said John Pike, of the Global Security Network. “Unless you can say who you are going to be fighting, you don't know whether the weapon you bought is going to be useful.”
