Defence Minister Wei Fenghe told a gathering of military chiefs from South Pacific and Caribbean nations in Beijing on Monday that the BRI would provide a "framework" for greater military co-operation, undercutting the communist regime's public insistence it is intended to be a vehicle for peaceful economic development.
According to a four-paragraph report from China's state-run news agency Xinhua, Mr Wei told the meeting "co-operation will be promoted in such areas as anti-terrorism, peacekeeping and disaster relief to strengthen exchanges and co-operation under the framework of the BRI".
Xinhua quoted the chief of staff of Guyana's Defence Force as telling Mr Wei his country would like to strengthen ties with the Chinese military.
The article does not mention which South Pacific countries attended but the meeting comes amid a rising battle for influence in the region between Australia, the US and other Western allies on one hand and China on the other.
Scott Morrison has made a hallmark of his prime ministership the "Pacific step up", with Australia seeking to enhance its diplomatic and defence ties with the region.
China denied last year it was seeking to establish a military presence in Vanuatu, while Australia and the US have pledged to develop a joint naval base on Manus Island in response to concerns that Papua New Guinea was slipping into China's orbit.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has made the BRI a signature issue to promote trade and infrastructure but it has been heavily criticised by the Trump administration for "debt-trap diplomacy", while Australia is also wary of the program.
Australian Strategic Policy Institute executive director Peter Jennings said Mr Wei's comments were significant and not accidental.
"It's first official confirmation of a military connection to Belt and Road, which I and others have been warning about for some time," he said.
"It confirms the essentially correct approach of the Pacific step up and it demonstrates a point the government has been saying others denying there is Chinese interest in establishing a military presence in some of these island countries."
Mr Jennings said Australian officials would have to deepen the Pacific step up to deny China a military presence.
"A Chinese base in the Pacific is going to be something that immensely complicates our defence planning and we should work very hard to prevent that," he said.
A spokesman for International Development and the Pacific Minister Alex Hawke had not responded by deadline for comment on Mr Wei's remarks.
La Trobe Asia executive director Euan Graham likened efforts to prevent China securing a Pacific military presence to a game of "whack-a-mole". Once Beijing was rebuffed in one country, it turned its sights on another.
Dr Graham said "early intervention" was required to stop China gaining a military foothold, saying that was the lesson of Beijing's militarisation of the South China Sea, which it achieved with little opposition.
"Once it's established, it is going to be hard to close unless through use of force and that's failure of diplomacy," he said.
"If China wants a base in the region, they will find eventually someone pliant to having one."
Mr Wei's comments come as a Chinese spy ship makes it way south to observe joint Australian-US-Japanese military drills off the Queensland coast.
Australian defence chiefs have conceded they can do nothing to stop the Chinese spying on the exercises because they are in international waters and entitled to be there under the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea –the same legal framework Australia and other nations rely on during transits of the South China Sea when challenged by the Chinese navy.
China's nationalistic Global Times newspaper quoted a defence academic saying accusations Beijing had sent a spy ship were exaggerated and aimed at fuelling theories China was a threat.
Go to this link for more: https://www.afr.com/news/politics/national/china-to-boost-pacific-military-presence-20190709-p525h5
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