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vicious circle of mistrust appears to be increasing among countries in the region, given the plans to build a US military base in Darwin, Australia, which have been followed by an arms build up in the South China Sea.

The US says the base, which will see 2,500 US marines, naval ships and aircraft deployed to northern Australia from 2012, is not directed at any particular country.

It added that the base was intended for emergency responses, after Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said last month in his first statement that the agreement would have been better off not “provoking a reaction and counter-reaction, which would create a vicious cycle of tension and mistrust”.

However, Marty revised his statement, saying that the agreement should not be seen as disturbing and that the matter was the business of the US and Australia as part of their bilateral agreement.

In addition to the agreement, the US, Australia and India were recently reported to be engaged in a trilateral defense pact, with many analysts earlier predicting that this would be to counter the perceived rising of China in the region.

But Australia then made a correction, saying it had made no proposal for a trilateral security arrangement involving the two countries. This followed on from India’s strong protest, which stated that New Delhi was “not aware of any such proposal”, Reuters reported.

An Australian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said that Minister Kevin Rudd’s statement had been misinterpreted and was actually a response to a question on the likely overturning of an Australian ban on uranium exports to India.

The idea of an Australian, Indian and US security dialogue, in part to counter China’s rising naval power, has been pushed by a trio of influential think tanks in all three countries, but has yet to be adopted by any government, it reported.

A four-way security pact proposed by the US in 2007, which would have drawn Australia, the US, Japan and India together, disintegrated when Japan and India floated concerns that it would look like an attempt to encircle China.

Meanwhile, in the South China Sea, countries are reportedly building up their military bases. Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines, Vietnam, China and Taiwan all have overlapping claims in the territory.

In addition, a source told The Jakarta Post the US had asked Indonesia to use its granted F-16 jet fighters to help the US deal with China “if anything bad happens in the South China Sea”. The US Embassy in Jakarta could not immediately confirm this information. Indonesia has accepted the US’ offer.

“There has been a vicious cycle of distrust. One of the causes is the absence of China’s transparency in their spectacular military buildup,” Indonesia Center of Democracy, Diplomacy and Defense executive director Teuku Rezasyah said at the weekend.

He said the US and Australia had traditionally made public their White Paper of Defense and Strategic Assessment, a step that China had never taken.

“The absence of such a document poses a threat to other countries who cannot understand China’s strategic development, leading to a worst case scenario where they build on their own,” he said.

University of Indonesia international relations expert Makmur Keliat said the vicious cycle of mistrust was proof that the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) “had failed in establishing confidence building measures among its members”.

The ARF is the largest security forum in the region, where member countries discuss security issues openly.