Explained: What does AUKUS deal mean for the Indo-Pacific?

Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States have finalised the nuclear-powered submarine deal known as AUKUS. The agreement, a trilateral security partnership between Australia, the UK and the US, aims will provide nuclear-powered submarines to Canberra and aims at countering Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific. The announcement was made after US president Joe Biden, UK prime minister Rishi Sunak and Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese attended a summit meeting in San Diego on Monday and asserted that the move is to keep the Indo-Pacific region “free and open.” “With the support and approval of the Congress, beginning in the early 2030s, the United States will sell three Virginia-class submarines to Australia with the potential to sell up to two more if needed, jumpstarting their undersea capability a decade earlier than many predicted,” Biden said in the presence of Australian prime minister Albanese and British prime minister Sunak. Let’s take a look at what AUKUS means for the Indo-Pacific: Under the AUKUS agreement, Australia will first receive at least three nuclear-powered submarines from the US. As part of the announcement, the US has also pledged a total of $4.6 billion over the next few years to build its submarine construction capacity and to improve the maintenance of its Virginia-class submarines. “It is a ‘big deal’ because this really shows that all three nations are drawing a line in the sand to start and counter the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) aggressive moves in the Indo-Pacific,” Guy Boekenstein, senior director of defence and national security at Australia’s Northern Territory government, told the BBC. “It also publicly demonstrates our combined stance on this and commitment to a stable and secure Indo-Pacific region - one that for the past 70 years has led to the prosperity of all in the region, including China’s economic growth.” This comes in the backdrop of China remaining engaged in hotly contested territorial disputes in both the South China Sea and the East China Sea. China claims sovereignty over all of the South China Sea. Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei and Taiwan have counterclaims. “We hear words about cooperation and then we see the threats against Taiwan and events in Hong Kong and the rapid militarisation of the South China Sea. So really when it comes to strategic issues, deterrents seem to be the only thing that makes sense against China,”  Michael Shoebridge, director of defence, strategy and national security at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, told BBC. Beijing has also built up and militarised many of the islands and reefs it controls in the region. Both areas are stated to be rich in minerals, oil and other natural resources and are also vital to global trade. According to CNN, the US, UK and Australia through this deal have signalled that Beijing is a significant threat to their security and are thus readying themselves for a long-term tussle.

“It’s deeply consequential,” a senior administration official told CNN.

“The Chinese know that, they recognise it and they’ll want to engage accordingly.” [caption id=“attachment_12286692” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] China’s national flag is displayed next to the Pentagon logo at the Pentagon on 7 May, 2012. AP File[/caption] Australia’s future SSN, which Biden described as “SSN-AUKUS”, will also be a state-of-the-art platform designed to leverage the best of submarine technology from all the three nations. “This state-of-the-art conventionally armed nuclear-powered submarine will work — that will combine the UK submarine technology and design with the American technology,” Biden said. Shoebridge told BBC this has enormous ramifications for the region. “Only six countries in the world have nuclear submarines. They are a really powerful deterrent capability without giving them nuclear weapons," Michael Shoebridge, director of defence, strategy and national security at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said. SSN-AUKUS will be based upon the United Kingdom’s next-generation SSN design while incorporating cutting edge US submarine technologies, and will be built and deployed by both Australia and the United Kingdom. “Beginning this year, Australian personnel will embed with US and UK crews on boats and at bases in our schools and shipyards. We will also begin to increase our port visits to Australia. In fact, as we speak, the nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Asheville, is making a port call in Perth,” Biden said. “And later this decade, we will be establishing a rotational presence of the US and UK nuclear-powered subs in Australia to help develop the work force Australia is going to need to build and maintain its fleet,” he said. Describing it as a new chapter in the relationship between the three countries, Albanese said this is a friendship built on their shared values, commitment to democracy, and common vision for a peaceful and a prosperous future. “The AUKUS agreement, we confirm here in San Diego, represents the biggest single investment in Australia’s defense capability in all of our history, strengthening Australia’s national security and stability in our region; building a future made in Australia with record investments in skills, jobs, and infrastructure; and delivering a superior defence capability into the future,” he said. From early in the next decade, Australia will take delivery of three US Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines. This is the first time in 65 years and only the second time in history that the United States has shared its nuclear propulsion technology, he said. Charles Edel, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told CNN the deal was meant to “….transform the industrial shipbuilding capacity of all three nations, it’s meant as a technological accelerator, it’s meant to change the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific, and, ultimately, it’s meant to change the model of how the United States works with and empowers its closest allies.” Sunak calls out China, Russia Commenting on the deal, Sunak noted, “Sixty years ago, here in San Diego, President Kennedy spoke of a higher purpose: the maintenance of freedom, peace, and security. Today, we stand together united by that same purpose. Recognising that to fulfil it, we must forge new kinds of relationships to meet new kinds of challenge, just as we have always done.” “In the last 18 months, the challenges we face have only grown. Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, China’s growing assertiveness, the destabilising behaviour of Iran and North Korea all threaten to create a world defined by danger, disorder, and division,” he said. “Faced with this new reality, it is more important than ever that we strengthen the resilience of our own countries. That is why the UK is today announcing a significant uplift in our defence budget. “We are providing an extra £5 billion over the next two years, immediately increasing our defence budget to around 2.25 per cent of GDP. This will allow us to replenish our war stocks and modernise our nuclear enterprise, delivering AUKUS and strengthening our deterrent. Our highest priority is to continue providing military aid to Ukraine because their security is our security,” Sunak added. Biden says no challenge to Beijing However, Biden, aware of Chinese concerns about a nuclear-powered submarine deal with Australia and Britain, said the agreement was more about securing stability in the Indo-Pacific region. “I don’t view what we’re doing as a challenge to anybody,” Biden told reporters. But a piece in The Guardian described AUKUS as a “high-stakes and high-risk plan” to reduce the prospects of adventurism. “While most regional neighbours are reluctant to say so publicly, privately they are eager for the US presence to remain and for the status quo to continue. The best way to ensure that, in the face of a more assertive and muscular China, it appears, is to muscle up in response,” the piece argued. “Some would respond saying the US can’t be trusted. Look at Iraq in 2003 and Libya in 2011. They miss the changed dynamics of today. American strategists have a clear-eyed appreciation of the diminution of American martial prowess and of the high risk of failure in any Indo-Pacific confrontation,” the piece concluded.

Shoebridge, talking to BBC, agreed with that assessment.

“The region will appreciate that. This is part of a geopolitical shift which is driven by one big thing. And that is the direction that Xi Jinping is taking. This announcement fits with the growing participation of the world’s biggest democracies to deter China from using its power.” China reacts angrily But China on Tuesday angrily denounced the nuclear-powered submarine deal announced by the US, UK and Australia, saying the pact violates the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the three countries are travelling “further down the dangerous and wrong path.” China has been opposing the AUKUS alliance which helps Canberra to acquire the US nuclear submarines to boost its security in the face of increasing hostilities between the two countries. China says the bloc is aimed at containing its rise. Reacting to the announcement, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a media briefing here that the three countries’ efforts to advance cooperation on nuclear submarines and other cutting-edge military technology under the AUKUS pact were a typical Cold War mentality which will fuel an arms race, undermine the international non-proliferation regime and harm regional peace and stability. “The three countries’ latest joint statement shows that in pursuit of geopolitical selfish interests, they can disregard the international community’s concerns and they are travelling further down the dangerous and wrong path,” he said. “Their cooperation concerns the transfer from nuclear weapons states to non-nuclear weapons states of large amounts of weapons-grade uranium,” he said. “It constitutes grave nuclear proliferation risks and violates the purposes and objectives of the NPT. They claim to adhere to the highest standard on nuclear non-proliferation that is just aimed to hoodwink the public,” Wang said. “In reality, they are coercing the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) secretariat to make safeguard exemption arrangements which seriously harm the agency’s authority. We are firmly against it,” he said. Nuclear submarine cooperation concerns the integrity and authority of the NPT and safeguards issues concern all the member states and therefore should be jointly discussed and decided through in a transparent, open and inclusive intergovernmental process, he said. “Pending a consensus, the countries must not engage in nuclear submarine cooperation and the IAEA secretariat should not sign any safeguards arrangement with the three countries,” Wang said. Asia Pacific is the most vibrant and robust region of the world which should be cherished, he said. “We urge the three countries to listen to the call of the international community and the regional countries, abandon the obsolete zero-sum mentality and narrow-minded geopolitical mindset, and fulfil their international obligations, refraining from undermining regional world peace and security,” Wang said. But Peter Dean, director of Foreign Policy and Defense at the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, told CNN Chinese claims were overblown. “If there is an arms race in the Indo-Pacific, there is only one country that is racing, and that is China,” he said.

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