Antinuclear

It is the latest move by Australia to take a bigger role in the region’s security. Earlier this month, it agreed to host a de facto U.S. base in the north of the country which would provide military reach into southeast Asia and the South China Sea, where China has disputes with several other states over sovereignty…..

It was unclear why Rudd, a Mandarin-speaking Sinophile, would risk irritating Australia’s top trade partner China which is already nervous that Obama’s latest diplomatic push into the Asia-Pacific is part of broader U.S. policy to encircle it…..

prominent Chinese military commentator, People’s Liberation Army Major General Luo Yuan, said this week that Washington was clearly trying to fence in Beijing.

“The United States is making much of its ‘return to Asia’, has been positioning pieces and forces on China’s periphery, and the intent is very clear — this is aimed at China, to contain China,” Luo wrote on the website of the People’s Daily newspaper…..

Australia has embarked on its own $65 billion defence modernization including new assault ships, destroyers and warplanes, and is already involved in a tripartite economic and security dialogue with Japan and the United States.

U.S. officials have been particularly pushing Canberra to commit additionally to construction of a new fleet of 12 powerful missile submarines — possibly of U.S. design — in what would be the country’s largest sole defence acquisition.

URANIUM SALES TO INDIA…Rudd told the Australian Financial Review that a looming weekend vote and expected approval by Australia’s ruling Labor Party to drop a longstanding ban on uranium sales to non-Nuclear Proliferation Treaty countries like India could help clear the way for formation of a new pact.

Michael McKinley, a security expert at the Australian National University, said an India-U.S.-Australia security pact was obviously directed at China…..

The influential Greens party, which controls the upper house balance-of-power, said a decision by the government to approve the sale of uranium to India would breach Canberra’s obligations under a 1985 nuclear-free Pacific treaty.

“The arguments against this appalling back-flip continue to stack up, while the nuclear stooges offer nothing more than a fistful of dollars in exchange for indulging in a dangerous and illegal trade. Australia is better than that,” said Greens Senator Scott Ludlam.