The Chinese government is stepping up its campaign against Australia’s push to build nuclear-powered submarines with the United States and the United Kingdom, and released a new report stating that the project poses a serious risk to the United States. non-proliferation and warns that Australia may intend to develop. nuclear weapons.
Key points:
- The report warns that the submarine agreement would set a “dangerous precedent” in allowing nuclear states to transfer quality nuclear materials for weapons to a non-nuclear state.
- It also states that Australia remains committed to acquiring nuclear weapons
- China has been rapidly expanding its own arsenal of nuclear weapons in recent years
Two Chinese think tanks, the China Disarmament and Arms Control Association and the Chinese Institute of Nuclear Industry Strategy, held a press conference in Beijing yesterday with a series of state media to present the report, entitled: A Dangerous Conspiracy: The Risk of Nuclear Proliferation of Nuclear-Powered Submarines Collaboration in the Context of AUKUS.
The lengthy report reprimands Australia, the US and the UK for setting a “dangerous precedent” with AUKUS because it would allow nuclear states to transfer quality nuclear materials for weapons to a non-nuclear state for the first time.
“In addition, it ferments potential risks and dangers in multiple aspects such as nuclear safety, the nuclear submarine arms race, and the proliferation of missile technology, with a profound negative impact on global strategic balance and stability,” he says. the report.
Richard McGregor of the Lowy Institute said both think tanks were “part of the broader fabric of the Chinese party-state” – rather than independent entities – and that the report was part of an orchestrated campaign against AUKUS. by the Chinese government.
“He [Chinese government] he has been campaigning on this for some time and this report is simply trying to concretize his argument, add weight to it and give them a document that they can distribute to any country they want around the world to present their case, ”he said.
“Any obstacles they may put in the way of AUKUS, they will put them there. We should expect this to happen over the next decade or so. China will not stop.”
Australia has already increased resources in both Canberra and Vienna to help strengthen its diplomatic defenses against Russian and Chinese campaigns against the project.
However, McGregor said the “uncomfortable fact” for Australia is that China “had an argument to argue” when it noted that AUKUS would set a new precedent.
“I have no doubt that Australia will strictly follow the rules on non – proliferation [and] this nuclear-grade material will be locked inside submarines for the entire life of the ships and will not be used to make nuclear weapons, ”he said.
“But the Chinese can argue that once the US and the UK can do this for Australia, any other nuclear country, for example Russia, could say, ‘Okay, we can transfer material similar to, say, the Iran to use it in its submarines. ”, He said.
“We could now rightly trust Australia to handle this material properly, but would we trust Iran to use it in accordance with global rules? And there could be a different answer to these two questions.”
He claims Australia wants nuclear weapons
The Chinese government’s report also makes more extravagant claims that Australia remains determined to acquire nuclear weapons, citing the federal government’s “obsessive search” for technology in the 1950s and 1960s under the Menzies government.
“Given that Australia already has a historically accumulated body of knowledge related to nuclear weapons and will pass into its hands nuclear delivery systems, once the country takes the desperate step to re-develop nuclear weapons, the deadline for a The nuclear breakthrough will be too short for the international community to respond effectively, “the report says.
He also says that proponents of nuclear weapons at the Australian academy have “resurfaced” recently, but only cites two recent articles to support that claim.
One of the two articles cited does not even directly advocate for Australia to acquire nuclear weapons.
China is rapidly expanding its arsenal of weapons, including missiles and nuclear warheads. (AP: Mark Schiefelbein)
McGregor said the suggestion that there was a serious push within official and academic circles for Australia to acquire nuclear weapons was “obviously not true” and that the report’s authors had “collected” articles and the historical record to present a narrative. distorted.
“We can’t even reach a consensus on having nuclear power reactors. The idea that we will quickly become a state of nuclear weapons is not credible,” he said.
He also said it is worth noting that the report is silent on China’s rapid expansion of its own arsenal of nuclear weapons.
“You will not get a balanced debate from the think tanks that are effectively weapons of the Chinese party-state,” he said.
“This should not surprise us and we should not expect it.
“China tirelessly complains about the military accumulation of other countries, such as Japan, for example, while its own military accumulation exceeds that of all other countries around it.”