The Chronicle (South Tyneside and Durham)
Nuclear sub pact ‘not adversarial’
BORIS Johnson has insisted Britain’s new defence pact with the United States and Australia is not intended as an “adversarial” move against China.
In a ground-breaking agreement, dubbed Aukus, the three allies agreed to co-operate on the development for the first time of a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines for the Australian navy.
The move, widely interpreted as an attempt to check China’s growing military assertiveness in the Indo-pacific, was swiftly condemned by Beijing as a “geopolitical gaming tool”.
But in a Commons statement, the Prime Minister said that, while the agreement to share nuclear submarine technology with Australia represented a “huge increase” in the levels of trust between the three countries, it was not “revolutionary”.
“Aukus is not intended to be adversarial towards any other power,” he said.
“It merely reflects the close relationship that we have with the United States and with Australia, the shared values that we have and the sheer level of trust between us that enables us to go to this extraordinary extent of sharing nuclear technology in the way that we are proposing to do.
“It is true that this is a huge increase in the levels of trust between the UK, the US and Australia.
“It is a fantastic defence technology partnership that we are building. But it is not actually revolutionary.”
In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said the move “seriously undermined regional peace and stability” while casting doubt on Australia’s commitment to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
“The export of highly sensitive nuclear submarine technology to Australia by the US and the UK proves once again that they are using nuclear exports as a tool for geopolitical game and adopting double standards.
“This is extremely irresponsible,” he said. He said the three allies needed to abandon their “outdated Cold War zero-sum mentality” otherwise they would “only end up shooting themselves in the foot”.
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace insisted the Chinese were “wrong” to see the agreement as an attempt to engage in a new cold war. However, he acknowledged that China’s military expansion - and its involvement in a series of disputes with neighbouring nations over navigation rights in the South China Sea - inevitably led to a “reaction” elsewhere.
“China has launched on a huge investment in its military and its surface fleet and aircraft. It is probably one of the largest armed forces on the planet,” he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.
“China is obviously engaged in a number of disputes around freedom of navigation. That just causes a reaction elsewhere.”
The pact was announced in a joint statement on Wednesday by Mr Johnson, US president Joe Biden and Australian prime minister Scott Morrison.