16,000 US Marines Could Be Stationed Permanently in Australia

US Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Aldo Ramos, a grenadier with Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment (Reinforced), Marine Rotational Force — Darwin 24.3, holds security at Combat Training Centre, Tully, QLD, Australia, June 12, 2024. Public domain

In my mind, there are only two things that keep China’s President Xi Jinping up at night: The US Marine Corps and Australia.

So, what happens when you put those two together?

Crickey!

China’s rapid military buildup has been alarming Western observers [at least] as far back as the Obama Administration.

The most recent examples of China’s aggressive actions can be found in the 2023 China Military Power Report that DOD delivered to Congress last year. In it, the DOD identified China as the department’s “top pacing challenge.”

By 2049 — marking the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party’s rise to power — China’s leadership aims to pull off what they call “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”

Think of it as a national makeover, but instead of Botox, it means ballistic missiles, military drills, and nuclear expansion.

As part of this rejuvenation, China has amped up military coercion in recent years.

Case in point? A sharp rise in unsafe intercepts of US, allied, and partner aircraft and vessels in international airspace and waterways across the Indo-Pacific. Between fall 2021 and fall 2023, the US counted over 180 risky maneuvers by China’s People’s…