AUKUS submarine deal opens Pandora’s box in the Asia-Pacific

The leaders of the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia clinched a deal on Monday under which the US will sell three Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines to Australia in the early 2040s, with an option for Australia to buy two more if needed, and the three countries plan to jointly develop a new nuclear submarine based on US and UK technology.

The announcement came only days after the International Atomic Energy Agency’s board of governors met in Vienna where many countries opposed the deal. The deal, if put into practice, will undermine peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific, sabotage the international nuclear non-proliferation regime and trigger an arms race.

The three countries are orchestrating a nuclear proliferation event under the AUKUS framework as they agreed in 2021, despite being signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. According to their plan, the US and the UK will transfer tons of weapons-grade highly enriched uranium to Australia, a non-nuclear state, violating the objectives and principles of the NPT, the statute of the IAEA, and the relevant provisions of the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty.

To whitewash their plot, the three countries tried to force the IAEA secretariat to arrange for exemptions and amend relevant IAEA resolutions. Despite failing to do so, they still pressed ahead with the deal, proving once again that their claims they uphold the “rules-based international order” and the “pursuit of multilateralism” are out-and-out lies.

Nuclear submarine cooperation is by no means a private matter of the clique alone. It concerns the interests of all IAEA members and should be decided by them through discussions. People in the Asia-Pacific never forget that it is thanks to their escape from the Cold War specter that the region has developed into the most dynamic and fastest-growing region in the world. Whoever wants to destroy that should be resolutely opposed.

CHINA MEDIA GROUP