Bilateral mechanism can help deepen trust with Australia

International relations experts more or less agree that while Barack Obama was the US president there was strategic mutual distrust between China and the United States largely because of the latter's strategic "pivot" to Asia strategy, which was actually intended at containing China's rise.

Yet fewer people seem to have realized that similar distrust has also marked the relationship between China and Australia from time to time. One proof of the distrust is that Canberra has almost always supported Washington in issues such as the South China Sea disputes, and the US' "freedom of navigation" operations near disputed waters and other major strategic maneuverings in the Asia-Pacific region.

On April 18, US Marines started arriving in Darwin in northern Australia on a six-month deployment program as part of the US "pivot" to Asia strategy. A Reuter report says that, although the 1,250 US troops in Australia comprise half of the 2,500 Marines to be gradually deployed there according to an agreement signed in 2011, Australia will see the largest deployment of US aircraft contingent in peacetime history.