Japan, Australia and US hold security talks

SYDNEY, Mar 18 (Reuters) Foreign ministers from the United States, Japan and Australia today began talks aimed at bringing the three countries closer on issues such as China and how to tackle its growing military strength.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in Australia for a three-day visit, is concerned that China will become a ''negative force'' unless the emerging superpower is more open about its military build-up.

''We want conditions in which China's rise is a positive force in the region,'' said Rice on Friday at a news conference with Australian Prime Minister John Howard.

China's 2.3-million-strong People's Liberation Army is the world's largest standing force. Its official defence budget is set to rise 14.7 percent to 283.8 billion yuan ( billion) in 2006, Beijing has said.

While denying that the United States has a ''containment policy'' towards China, Rice's language underscored differences with close ally Australia which views Beijing more as an economic opportunity than a military threat.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, who also attended Saturday's Trilateral Strategic Dialogue, spoke of the ''very good and constructive'' relationship his government had with Beijing but has played down any possible differences in approach to China by Australia and the United States.

''We have had a very good chat about China. I think -- to use an Americanism -- we absolutely read from the same page, even if we don't use the same words,'' Downer told Australian radio yesterday.

Downer said he did not believe the United States was alarmed by the rise of China, just ''very focused'', because historically the rise of new powers had created a lot of tension.

Some analysts disagreed.

''Australians are concerned that the United States is looking at this as another cold war,'' said Dana Dillon, an Asia expert with the Heritage Foundation in Washington.

JAPAN TENSIONS Tokyo also has strained ties with Beijing, with a range of disputes stemming mainly from Japan's occupation of much of China from 1931 to 1945.

Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso, who met Rice privately before the three ministers began their talks, wrote in an article in the Wall Street Journal this week that China's return to centre-stage in East Asia was welcome as long as it evolved into a liberal democracy.

Like Rice, he urged Beijing to fully disclose its defence spending which he said ''remained opaque''.

Aside from China, the three countries will also look at the stalemate in six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear programme, deadlocked since Washington imposed financial restrictions on Pyongyang.

While Japan is directly involved in the talks, Australia has used its alliance with the United States and rare diplomatic ties with Pyongyang to encourage negotiations.

The six-way talks between North Korea, the United States, South Korea, Japan, China and Russia began in 2003 to try to break the nuclear deadlock.

Iraq is another topic on the agenda. The United States has more than 130,000 troops in Iraq and Australia has about 1,300 soldiers in and around the region, some of whom are providing security for Japanese teams involved in reconstruction.

After the meeting, called the Trilateral Strategic Dialogue, Rice was to return to Washington following a nine-day trip that also took her to Chile for the inauguration of that country's first woman president and to Indonesia.

REUTERS VJ RAI0710