GridHot.ID – Timor Leste bring in ship artificial naval patrol China.
Ship 43 meters high was equipped with a 30 millimeter cannon.
Initially ship is manned by sailors China.
Then, ship was launched for Timor Leste.
Quoting The Sydney Morning Herald, observers say, it is a slap hard for Australia.
Ship Shanghai weighing 175 tons, designed in the 1960s, has arrived at Timor Leste, at a time when their relationship was tense.
At that time under the leadership of Xanana Gusmao, Timor Leste bought a ship from a Chinese company in 2008.
They bought without consulting Australia, which had been handed over since 2006.
This action made relations between Australia and Timor Leste even more strained and even ended at the worst point since then.
Not only that, Australia felt nervous when the ship was imported by Timor Leste from China with a surprising destination.
According to Ian Storey, an expert on relations between Timor Leste and China, the Dili government buying ships from China wanted to show Australia that it had no other choice with respect to defense partners other than China.
Dr Storey, a fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, said that once he understands it, the boat will be used for fisheries protection duties.
A statement from Timor Leste’s Ministry of Defense and Security said the ships, which will initially be manned by Chinese crews while undergoing training, will be able to cover a distance of 1000 kilometers and remain at sea without ground support for a week.
The then Defense Minister, Julio Tomas Pinto, said the ships were an “urgent” response to fighting illegal activities in Timor Leste’s exclusive economic zone.
Timor Leste’s navy consists of old Portuguese-made Albatross class ships.
The $ 28 million purchase of the ship from Poly Technologies, a subsidiary of China Poly Group, a defense company with close ties to the Chinese military, sparked controversy in Timor Leste.
The government makes purchases without going through an open tender process.
It happened as China spent millions of dollars building an economic, diplomatic and strategic foothold in the half-island nation.
Dr Storey wrote in a China Jamestown Foundation Briefing last year that one of China’s main interests in Timor Leste is gaining access to the country’s oil and gas reserves.
Australia’s relations with Timor Leste are at their lowest point since the country gained independence in 2002, say observers on Timor Leste.
In a fiery speech in 2010, Gusmao attacked Woodside Petroleum’s plans to build a floating liquefied natural gas platform over the multi-billion Greater Sunrise field in the Timor Sea.
Timorese media have quoted him as saying that the Timorese people must unite to stop Australia from stealing their wealth as happened in 1989 when Australia signed an agreement with Indonesia to collect resources in Timor.
Gusmao has threatened to block the Greater Sunrise project unless the consortium delivers gas to a factory in Timor Leste.
Woodside estimates Australia and Timor Leste will share in the US $ 32 billion in profits from the floating development of the oilfield.
Tempo Semanal, a newspaper published by Dili, said relations between Canberra and Dili had sunk to the point that they could hardly speak to each other.
The newspaper said the dispute over Greater Sunrise was one of the reasons, which also pointed to Australia’s failed aid program.
“ Australia needs to know that bad relationships aren’t just about Woodside. There is history here. It’s been a bad history for the most part, “said the newspaper run by Timor Leste’s most famous journalist.
This article has been published on Intisari Online with the title “As if you were getting a hard slap, Australia was worried when Timor Leste suddenly bought a navy ship from China, the goal was really surprising”
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