U.S., Australia to ask China to (military) exercises: report

Source: Reuters

CANBERRA (Reuters) - China will be asked by the United States and Australia to join military exercises to repair ties after a diplomatic row between Canberra and Beijing, a top U.S. military official said on Thursday.

Following a meeting between Australia's military chief Angus Houston and U.S. Pacific Command head Admiral Timothy Keating, both countries agreed to approach China's defence ministry about joint naval and land exercises, Keating told the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper in an interview. "We are anxious to engage with them," Keating said.

Relations between Australia and China have been soured by the arrest in China an Australian mining executive for commercial espionage and by the granting of an Australian visa to an exiled ethnic Uighur leader, which infuriated Beijing.

Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said economic interdependence between his country and China, its biggest trade partner, would ultimately override the differences, with two-way trade worth $53 billion at stake.



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