US President Joe Biden speaking on the UK and Australia submarine pact on Wednesday
Image credit: Doug Mills for The New York Times
September 13-17 News
AUKUS – Nuclear Submarine Pact
This week, the US, UK, and Australia have signed an important nuclear-powered submarine pact, allowing Australia to build such submarines based on American technology. Named “AUKUS”, this multinational agreement covers several technologies and is said to be one of the biggest defense partnerships in decades, monitoring increasing Chinese behavior over the Asia-Pacific area. Consequently, China has condemned the agreement as being “extremely irresponsible”, undermining regional peace. Additionally, the three involved nations have been said to have a “Cold War mentality” by the Chinese government. France has also shown its disapproval due to its loss of a submarine deal with Australia over the matter, claiming it to be a “stab in the back”.
Aside from growing tensions in the Asia-Pacific region being considered a global security concern, the pact seems to escalate territorial disputes in the South China Sea, a contested maritime territory with ample natural goods and economic activity. Moreover, growing Western military actions, such as with the AUKUS pact, could be an attempt to protect Taiwan, a territory often under Chinese threat. Although not explicitly mentioning this possibility, the UK has claimed to be determined to defend international law.
To learn more about this, have a look at the links below:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-58564837
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/15/us/politics/biden-australia-britain-china.html
[Research conducted by Global Politics student Hector Serra]
EAC PRESS 