The USA and Australia with Aukus go to war against China (which is freaking out)
Aukus Entente: US, Australia and UK unveiled details of a plan to supply Australia with nuclear-powered attack submarines from the early 1930s to counter China's ambitions in the Indo-Pacific
As part of the Aukus pact, the United States, United Kingdom and Australia have unveiled the details of their plan to create a new fleet of nuclear-powered submarines, aimed at countering China's influence in the Indo-Pacific region.
In San Diego, the American president, Joe Biden, the British premier, Rishi Sunak, and the Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, announced the program to provide Australia with the technology needed to build nuclear-powered submarines .
This is one of the main objectives of the Aukus partnership, the military pact signed between the three countries in September 2021 against Chinese ambitions in the Indo-Pacific. In launching the partnership, Canberra also scrapped the €56 billion contract with French shipbuilder Naval Group for 12 submarines.
With the nuclear submarines envisaged by the Aukus agreement, the US is dragging Australia towards a conflict that goes against its interests, wrote the Chinese newspaper Global Times this morning. The Aukus submarine deal takes "the path of error and danger," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said at a press conference on Tuesday.
For the designers of Aukus, the purpose of the pact is not to wage war, but to prevent it. It justifies itself as a classic act of deterrence, intended to dissuade China from deploying its military force against Taiwan or in the South China Sea.
WHAT THE SUBMARINE AGREEMENT PROVIDES
At the beginning of the next decade, Australia will receive three Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines, built by the US company General Dynamics, with the option to purchase two more units. At the same time, Canberra will begin to produce a new class of submarines with the United Kingdom, SSN-Aukus, with British design and US technologies: the first models, built by Bae Systems and Rolls-Royce, should be delivered to London at the end of the Thirty and to Australia at the beginning of the following decade.
SUBS DEPLOYED IN 2027
The deal will see US and British submarines deployed to Western Australia as soon as 2027 to help train Australian crews and strengthen deterrence.
"Cooperation between the three parties will strengthen the deterrence capabilities of democratic countries in the Indo-Pacific region and help maintain regional peace and stability," a statement said.
NUCLEAR PROPULSION
The announcement followed 18 months of talks since the allies signed the Aukus trilateral security pact in September 2021. This involved cooperation on some of the United States' most closely guarded military technology.
Washington will share nuclear propulsion technology with Aukus for the first time since it did so with Great Britain in the 1950s.
Biden stressed that the submarines will be nuclear-powered, not armed with nuclear weapons. "These boats will not have nuclear weapons of any kind," stressed the US president. For Australia, this is a major upgrade to its US ally's military capabilities. The country becomes only the second after the UK to receive Washington's elite nuclear propulsion technology.
THE (HIGH) COST FOR CANBERRA
“In the background then, two other themes; that of the costs of the whole programme. And the one already mentioned of the transfer of technologies, a delicate topic especially when it comes to nuclear power” explained Giovanni Martinelli on Startmag . In fact, the deal comes with a steep bill for Australia costing it estimated to be up to A$368 billion ($245 billion) by 2055. Prime Minister Albanese defended the spending, claiming it was "an economic plan, not just a defense and security plan”.
CHINA'S REACTION TO THE AUKUS ANNOUNCEMENT
The Chinese reaction was immediate. Beijing has strongly criticized the significant naval deal, condemning Aukus as an illegal act of nuclear proliferation.
The plan "creates serious nuclear proliferation risks, undermines the international non-proliferation system, fuels the arms race, and harms peace and stability," China's Permanent Mission to the United Nations said in a tweet following the announcement. .
Asked if he was concerned that China would see the Aukus submarine deal as aggression, Biden replied "no." The American president also added that he expected to speak with Chinese leader Xi Jinping soon, without specifying when.
THESE REPORTS
Meanwhile, relations between China and the United States have been at their lowest for decades. Various channels of communication, including military dialogues, have been suspended since Nancy Pelosi, then speaker of the US House of Representatives, visited Taiwan in August, unleashing the wrath of Beijing, recalls the Guardian .
Then in February the saga of the Chinese spy balloon in the US skies took care of it. The White House has given the order to bring it down, cooling the (already tense) relations between Washington and Beijing. So much so that the United States has canceled the long-awaited trip of Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, to Beijing.
Furthermore, the United States and its allies are increasingly concerned about the prospect of China launching a conflict with Taiwan.
THE COMMENT OF THE ANALYST
And now “the nations of the “Anglosphere” are renewing their alliance. This time to counter China's efforts to gain naval dominance in the Pacific” comments the Financial Times .
In Australia, some question whether their government has truly grasped the expense, time and technological demands of becoming so deeply involved in nuclear technology. In the UK, skeptics in the military establishment believe that the "Indo-Pacific lean" will undercut Britain's armed forces. As well as divert resources from the Russian threat. In America, parts of the government are resisting sharing some of the country's most closely guarded tech secrets, Ft always remembers.
Despite these concerns, the Aukus Pact enjoys bipartisan support in all three countries.
Analysts said that given China's growing power and threats to take Taiwan by force if necessary, it was crucial to advance the second phase of AUKUS.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/usa-e-australia-con-aukus-vanno-alla-guerra-contro-la-cina-che-sbrocca/ on Tue, 14 Mar 2023 14:48:55 +0000.