Australia-UK-US pact signals Asia-Pacific power shift

A new security partnership between the US, UK and Australia signals a paradigm shift in strategy and policy across the Asia-Pacific and will counter China's aggressive moves in the Indo-Pacific region.

Hyderabad: A new security partnership in the Asia-Pacific will see the UK and US provide Australia with the technology and capability to deploy nuclear-powered submarines. American officials have said the move was not aimed at countering Beijing.

However experts say the AUKUS agreement signals a paradigm shift in strategy and policy across the region. The timing of the new deal is particularly significant. It comes just a month after the US exit from Afghanistan, when doubts have been raised in multiple quarters about US commitment in the region. Britain too is eager to be more involved in the Asia-Pacific especially after its exit from the European Union, and Australia is increasingly concerned about China's influence. 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. The three nations are taking a combined stance on this and making a commitment to a stable and secure Indo-Pacific region.

The agreement involves the sharing of information and technology in a number of areas including intelligence and quantum technology as well as the acquisition of cruise missiles. But the nuclear submarines are key. They are to be built in Adelaide in South Australia and will involve the US and the UK providing consultation on technology for their production. A nuclear submarine has enormous defence capabilities and therefore ramifications for the region. Only six countries in the world have nuclear submarines. A nuclear submarine has really powerful deterrent capability without being armed with nuclear weapons.

Nuclear submarines are much more stealthy than conventional ones – they operate quietly, are able to move easily and are harder to detect. At least eight submarines will be supported, although it's not clear when they will be deployed. The process will take longer due to a lack of nuclear infrastructure in Australia. They will not be nuclear armed, only powered with nuclear reactors. Australia is not seeking to acquire nuclear weapons or establish a civil nuclear capability. The US and UK are willing to take the big step of exporting nuclear technology to a non-nuclear powered nation.

In recent years, China has demonstrated increasing power and influence in the region. The threats against Taiwan and events in Hong Kong and the rapid militarisation of the South China Sea all point to this. So really when it comes to strategic issues, deterrents seem to be the only thing that makes sense against China. The US has been investing heavily in other partnerships in the region too like Japan, South Korea, Thailand and the Philippines, as well as India and Vietnam. This could benefit all of them in the face of concerns about China's growing power.

Political relations between Beijing and Canberra deteriorated after Australia backed a global inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus. The AUKUS pact shows that not only Australia is aligning itself with the US and UK but also signals a vote of confidence in Australia which is looking to play a more active role in Asian security. Just because Australia has nuclear submarines doesn't mean it is more powerful than China. But it does change the balance of power in the region. If China does face a security situation in the South China Sea or Taiwan Strait, it will affect the military preparedness or response that China will have to prepare for.

The strategic implications of AUKUS for the geopolitics of the extended Indo-Pacific region in general, and the maritime domain in particular, are significant and multi-layered. This major policy decision comes just ahead of the first in-person Quad summit to be held in Washington September 24 that will bring together the leaders of the US, India, Japan and Australia. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is travelling to the US this week for the Quad summit and the annual UN General Assembly deliberations, will also have a bilateral meeting with US President Joe Biden for the first time in person since the latter assumed office.

The Donald Trump administration had accorded high priority to the Indo-Pacific in the US security calculus, and the Biden administration has retained, and further built on, this focus. The first multilateral summit, convened by Biden in March, at the virtual level, was of Quad leaders. As is the norm with Quad, no explicit reference was made to China but the four leaders (Biden, Modi, Yoshihide Suga, and Scott Morrison) shared their vision of an Indo-Pacific that is “free, open, resilient and inclusive”, and which, they added, has “increasingly been tested”. They also asserted that this had only “strengthened our resolve to reckon with the most urgent of global challenges together”. Despite his preoccupation with Afghanistan and domestic politics, Biden has clearly sustained the initiative and energy displayed in March on the Indo-Pacific.

AUKUS sherpas have worked swiftly over the last six months to bring Australia into the small group of nations that have nuclear-propelled submarines. The rationale for the decision to enable Australia with nuclear boatsis to address both the current strategic environment in the region and how it may evolve. The future of each of the nations — and indeed the world — depends on a free and open Indo-Pacific, enduring and flourishing in the decades ahead. The strategic environment of the Indo-Pacific has been roiled by China’s muscular assertiveness in the South China Sea in recent years. Beijing’s blatant rejection of international law, the UN Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS), related to the maritime domain was compounded by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy resorting to unilateral muscle-flexing to advance its own interpretation of historical territorial claims over disputed waters. Th smaller Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) neighbours were intimidated by this belligerence and China has defiantly contested the “free and open Indo-Pacific” formulation of the global community.

Quad nations have been consistent in upholding the principle of freedom of navigation, as contained in UNCLOS, at the political and diplomatic levels. However, there had been much speculation over whether the US, in partnership with like-minded nations, would be able to lend this principle any tangible military profile. AUKUS is the first step that conveys the US resolve to punctuate the maritime domain in a manner that will not only protect Australia’s core security interests, but shape the regional strategic environment.

Historically, major power contests have been influenced by sea power in a definitive manner. Beijing has been cognizant of this tenet, as also of its own maritime vulnerabilities and geopolitical constraints. By providing nuclear propulsion assistance to Australia, the US is making a rare exception (as it did with the UK in 1958) to its domestic policies. Barring the US, there is no other navy that has nuclear submarines in China’s proximity, and the inclusion of Australia into this category will inhibit the PLA Navy in a variety of ways.

China has castigated the US for building “exclusionary blocs targeting and harming the interests of third parties”, and accused Washington of being in transgression of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT). This is chutzpah of a high order, given that China had provided assistance to both Pakistan and North Korea in their illicit nuclear programmes, against the letter and spirit of NPT, of which China is a signatory. But this is part of the multi-layered opacity that characterises the complex regional strategic environment.

On the same day that AUKUS was unveiled, the Korean peninsula was animated by ballistic missile tests conducted by both Koreas, with Seoul carrying out a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) test. China has called for “restraint”, with Japan and South Korea remaining wary of Pyongyang.

While AUKUS has been cautiously welcomed by Japan and Singapore, France is incensed by the cancellation of its lucrative conventional submarine deal with Australia. India has chosen to remain non-committal for now. But there is little doubt that the Indo-Pacific teacup has been stirred vigorously by AUKUS. How China reads and reacts to the tea leaves will be critical for the peace and security of the region.

For India, the formation of the new Indo-Pacific coalition AUKUS is welcome for a number of reasons. The objective of the coalition is to help Australia build a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines and deepen security cooperation in other areas, such as defence-related artificial intelligence and quantum computing, cyberwarfare, and underwater technologies. From New Delhi’s perspective, the new coalition signals a strong political resolve in Washington to confront the growing security challenges from Beijing. Given India’s own mounting security problems with China, all actions designed to deter China, with or without Indian participation, are of strategic benefit to New Delhi. Because India is increasingly preoccupied with overland threats from China, it needs enduring partnerships to protect its maritime flank. Although India’s naval capabilities are significant, the scale and scope of the threat presented by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy have led India to focus on a wide range of maritime coalitions, including the Quad as well as separate relationships involving Australia, Japan, Indonesia, and France.

The trilateral AUKUS deal between Australia, UK and the US has faced considerable backlash from China, which has dubbed its as a "threat" to regional peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific. A state-run newspaper has picked on Australia saying Canberra is now a "potential target for a nuclear strike”.

Australia has hinted that it may decline to be a part of China's Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The decision came amidst the deteriorating relations between Beijing and Canberra after the AUKUS deal. Relations between Australia and China had begun to sour since 2018 after Canberra refused to grant permission to Chinese tech company Huawei to set up 5G towers in the island continent. Additionally, the countries are also at loggerheads after Beijing imposed hefty tariffs on Australian imports.

Meanwhile India’s strategic partnership with France, which has rapidly grown in recent years, is rooted in the countries’ shared objectives in the Indo-Pacific, where Paris has territories and a naval presence. Having France as a maritime partner expands India’s Indo-Pacific reach and impact. India, therefore, has strong incentives to keep France in the Indo-Pacific and could hopefully find ways to strengthen its maritime security cooperation with France. One way of doing it is to pick France as its partner for the procurement of new submarines.

AUKUS has weakened the Quad by leaving India and Japan out. But India is already a nuclear weapon power and has a nuclear submarine programme of its own. Japan’s aversion to the military use of nuclear technology is too strong for Tokyo to be part of AUKUS. From New Delhi’s perspective, it makes sense to build overlapping mini-lateral coalitions among willing Indo-Pacific partners rather than a single NATO-like alliance that few in the region would like to see.

New Delhi also likes that the new initiative will bind Australia and Britain to a longer-term strategic relationship with the United States in the Indo-Pacific. Some would see AUKUS as a restoration of the Anglosphere in the east. A major achievement of AUKUS lies in preventing further defections from the Anglosphere. Like New Zealand today, Australia and Britain until recently underestimated the threat from China and were bullish about economic engagement.