Australia's remote Darwin banking on China to revive city

Darwin

WHEN the United States signed an agreement in 2011 to use Australia's tropical port of Darwin as a base for military exercises, it was viewed as a key focus of former president Barack Obama's strategic pivot to Asia.

But when ammunition and equipment arrives in June for war games between US and Australian forces in tropical Darwin, it will come ashore at the town's Chinese-run port under the eyes of a firm said to have links with China's military.

China, and not the US, is fast becoming long-neglected Darwin's best hope for rejuvenating a city, named after the 19th-century naturalist Charles Darwin and better known for its monster crocodiles and giant beers. "I can feel that…