As of: 16.09.2021 3:07 a.m.
The US, Australia and the UK have signed a security agreement that Australia will provide US technology to build nuclear submarines. China criticized the pact, which pursues strategic interests in the Indo-Pacific.
The USA, Great Britain and Australia have forged a security pact for the strategically important Indo-Pacific region. US President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Australian colleague Scott Morrison presented the partnership in a virtual announcement to which they were connected from their respective capitals.
It is about securing peace and stability in the region in the long term, said Biden. Under the terms of the agreement, the United States will provide Australia with the technology that will enable the country to build nuclear-powered submarines. The US government officials emphasized that the provision of nuclear weapons is not planned.
China condemns the security pact
“We will continue to meet all of our nuclear non-proliferation commitments,” said Morrison. China’s embassy in Washington condemned the security pact. Countries should “not form an exclusive bloc that targets or harms the interests of third parties. In particular, they should abandon their Cold War mentality and ideological prejudices,” Embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu said when asked by Reuters.
According to the US, the partnership also provides for cooperation in the fields of artificial intelligence, quantum technology and cyber issues. It is not directed against a particular country. Biden has made it his business to show the growing influence of China’s borders. He identified the Indo-Pacific region in particular as a key region.
US competition with China
The boats should have conventional weapons, stressed President Biden. Australia would be the seventh country in the world to have submarines powered by nuclear reactors. With the pact, Biden is on the one hand to bind Australia more closely to America in order to counter the Chinese interests in the Indo-Pacific region. One has to react to the current strategic situation in the region, said Biden. And how it could develop in the future.
The Biden government likes to repeat that it is about a competition between autocratic systems and liberal democracies, between China and the West. To this end, the USA, Great Britain and Australia want to exchange more information in the areas of cyber security, artificial intelligence and the ability to militarily reach distant targets.
On the other hand, Australia already had a contract for the construction of 12 submarines; namely with France. Doubts about the deal had grown in the past few weeks. Now France has to take a back seat – to the global interests of the United States. Biden praises France for its military presence in the Indo-Pacific and promises that there will be no rift between the US allies on the Atlantic and those on the Pacific. Some Europeans might see it differently.