China accuses Aukus allies of outdated ‘Cold War’ mentality

Beijing retaliates while UK defends security alliance as a rational response to East Asian military threat

CHINA yesterday accused the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia of fuelling an “arms race” in the Pacific that will make the region more dangerous after the three nations announced a broad security alliance.

The partnership, known as Aukus, will see London and Washington help Canberra build nuclear-powered submarines as well as swap knowledge on cyber security, artificial intelligence, undersea technology and other scientific capabilities.

Zhao Lijian, a spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry, said the three countries were “severely damaging regional peace and stability, intensifying an arms race and damaging international nuclear non-proliferation efforts”. The ministry earlier said that the alliance would only “shoot itself in the foot” and that it represented an “outdated Cold War mentality”.

Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, denied the arrangement was specifically aimed at China, telling the House of Commons: “I think it is important for the House to understand that Aukus is not intended to be adversarial towards any other power.”

In another attempt to defuse Beijing’s anger, Scott Morrison, the Australian prime minister, said he remained ready to hold discussions with Xi Jinping, his Chinese counterpart, despite high-level talks being frozen amid deteriorating relations between the two countries.

The arrangement, which comes just weeks after Joe Biden oversaw a chaotic withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan, is widely seen as part of a broader refocusing of American military and diplomatic might on countering China.

Today, Mr Biden is due to host a meeting of the leaders of Australia, India and Japan, an informal alliance of pro-us allies in the Indo-pacific known as the “quad”. The Aukus partnership will first seek to help Canberra build eight nuclear-powered submarines.

Australia will be the second country – after Britain in 1958 – to be given access to US nuclear technology to build such military craft.

Nuclear-powered submarines are able to submerge for much longer than their diesel-electric counterparts and will allow the Royal Australian Navy to patrol undetected in disputed South China Sea waters that China currently claims as its own. The decision saw Canberra ditch a £65 billion contract to buy diesel-electric submarines from France, which condemned the move as “a stab in the back”.

Jean-yves Le Drian, the French foreign minister, said: “This brutal, unilateral and unpredictable decision reminds me a lot of what Mr Trump used to do … I am angry and bitter.”

Ben Wallace, the Defence Secretary, yesterday denied the arrangement was a betrayal of France, describing the decision as a rational response to China’s own military expansion.

“The Australians... wanted a strategic step change in their capability,” he said. “Fundamentally, we all see that China has invested more than anyone else on the planet in increasing its armed forces. Australia is joining that very small club of nations that have nuclearpowered submarines, and it gives them a strategic advantage.”

China has rapidly expanded its navy in recent years, adding its first combatready aircraft carriers and nuclearpowered submarines to a vast fleet of frigates and other light ships designed to project power into the Pacific.

Beijing has also established a patchwork of military outposts in the region, turning rocks and reefs into artificial islands with airstrips, hangars, ports and surface-to-air missile systems.

Mr Wallace said that China’s navy lagged behind the West in terms of combat preparedness. “It doesn’t matter how many secrets you steal, it doesn’t replace 60 years of experience.”

The submarine deal has been viewed as part of the US strategy to protect the socalled “first island chain” which includes Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own and has threatened to invade.

Taiwan’s strategic importance at the critical midpoint of the first island chain, a thread of major archipelagos that runs from Russia’s Kuril Islands to the Malay Peninsula, lies at the heart of Washington’s Indo-pacific policy.

Yesterday, Taipei proposed extra defence spending of £6.3billion over the next five years, as it warned of an urgent need to upgrade weapons in the face of a “severe threat” from China.

Lai Ching-te, Taiwan’s vice-president, said the Aukus deal represented a “positive” development for peace in the region. Japan has also become increasingly alarmed at Beijing’s military posturing near its shores, particularly over the flashpoint of the Senkaku Islands, over which it has competing claims with China.

Aukus, the security pact agreed between the UK, the US and Australia to cooperate on the creation of a new fleet of Australian nuclearpowered submarines, represents an important milestone in Boris Johnson’s attempts to redefine Britain’s post-brexit outlook. While there has been much discussion of Mr Johnson’s vision of Global Britain, there had been little in the way of tangible action to illustrate what it means in practice.

As members of the elite Five Eyes intelligencesharing network, the three countries are used to collaborating on sensitive issues. With the creation of Aukus, there will be a significant increase in cooperation, with the nations sharing knowledge on cutting-edge technology, as Australia seeks to increase its military strength to counter the threat posed by China. The new alliance will also provide a degree of reassurance following the Afghanistan fiasco, which raised serious questions about the future of the transatlantic alliance. And, by establishing a formal pact with Australia, the initiative helps to justify the ambition outlined in the Government’s Integrated Review for British policy to “tilt” towards the Indo-pacific.

The fact that the Australian deal comes at the expense of France should also provide a boost to Britain’s post-brexit trade ambitions. Canberra had agreed a £48 billion deal with the French shipbuilder Naval Group to supply a new fleet of diesel-electric-powered boats. The decision instead to construct a fleet of nuclear-powered vessels with Britain and the US offering to share its nuclear submarine know-how has caused dismay in Paris. But France’s loss will hopefully prove to be the UK’S gain – one that shows that Global Britain is more than just a political slogan.