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ndonesia has been informed of a plan by Australia, which was subsequently supported by the United States, to redevelop a naval base on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and sees no threat from it.

“What’s important is that they communicated it to us. No one can forbid them from doing what they are doing, as long as [the naval base] is not built in our territory,” the Defense Ministry’s director general of defense strategies Gen. Maj. M Nakir told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

US Vice President Mike Pence announced Saturday that the US would partner with Australia and the PNG to redevelop the Lombrum naval base on Manus island at the 2018 APEC CEO Summit.

“We will work with these nations to protect the sovereignty and maritime rights of the Pacific Islands as well,” he said, as reported by Reuters.

The announcement was made amid high tension between the US and China in the summit, with Pence accusing Beijing of debt-trap diplomacy and Chinese President Xi Jinping warning the US against protectionism.

Manus Island, in northern Papua New Guinea, was a major US naval base during the Second World War, playing a key role in Washington’s Pacific strategy. Recently, it has hosted one of Australia’s two controversial offshore immigration detention centers.

Earlier this month, Reuters reported that Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Australia would help the PNG redevelop the naval base, after the latter said China was also interested in funding it.

The PNG’s navy is made up largely of patrol boats, mostly donated by Australia, and landing craft.

Military expert Mufti Makarim said Indonesia would not react strongly to the plan, considering that the PNG was mostly influenced by and dependent on Australia.

“We are also not confrontational to the US and Australia, so the only option to react is to be moderate,” he told the Post.

Meanwhile, Center for Strategic and International Studies researcher Evan Laksmana said the fact that Indonesia’s defense establishment had been consulted prior to the announcement suggested gradually maturing bilateral defense ties.

“Both Jakarta and Canberra seem to have learned from the 2011 US Darwin troop deployment acrimony. Both the TNI [Indonesian Military] and ADF [Australian Defense Forces] need more, not less, engagement to ensure that any changes to each other’s regional posture could be communicated and understood based on mutual transparency,” he told the Post.

The Barack Obama administration announced in 2011 the deployment of 2,500 troops to Darwin, resulting in a strong reaction from Indonesia, as then-foreign minister Marty Natalegawa said the arrangement would generate a “vicious circle of tension and mistrust”.

Amid the rising influence of China, Indonesia announced in 2016 a plan to build integrated military bases in Natuna, Riau Islands. The base was expected to be completed within two to three years.

Mufti said while Indonesia had not conducted any intelligence analysis to determine whether the naval base in Manus is a threat or not, Indonesia had long been working on strengthening the eastern part of Indonesia.

“[There has never been] specific considerations on military threats from the eastern side, just on maritime security,” he said.

Nakir assured that the plan for a naval base on Manus Island would not pose any threat to Indonesia.

“That’s their program, and we already have our units there [in the neighboring Papua province],” he said, referring to the Army’s Third Infantry Division, the Navy’s Third Fleet and Third Marines, and the Air Force’s Third Air Force Operations Command.