The announcement of a new strategic alliance between Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom (AUKUS) has caught many by surprise. […]
n particular, Indonesia and Malaysia have come out strongly against Australia’s plan to acquire a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines with the help of the US and UK. Even Singapore, Australia’s most reliable ally in the region, has expressed concern.
The Afghanistan debacle has left a bad taste among many Indo-Pacific countries, and some are wondering if the timing of the AUKUS announcement was intended as a show of US power in the region to reassure jittery partners. […]
First, many of them think there is no such thing as acquiring nuclear-powered submarines without the prospect of acquiring nuclear weapons in the future. Australia has not joined the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which requires parties to agree not to develop, test, produce, acquire, possess, stockpile or threaten to use nuclear weapons. […]
However, Australia did ratify the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in 1973 and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1998. And Morrison said last week that Australia has “no plans” to pursue nuclear weapons.
Yet, some ASEAN countries are worried the AUKUS agreement is a clear signal the West will take a more aggressive stand towards China by admitting Australia to the nuclear club. […]
The ASEAN nations have always preached maintaining Southeast Asia as a “zone of peace, freedom and neutrality”, free from interference by any outside powers.
In 1995, the member states also signed the Treaty of Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone, which committed to keep nuclear weapons out of the region. Not a single nuclear power has signed on to it.
Although everyone knows China, the US, Britain and France have ignored these protocols by manoeuvring armed warships through the South China Sea – not to mention China’s building of military bases on disputed islands there – ASEAN does not want to see this number grow. Läs artikel