The AUKUS agreement between the US, UK and Australia has received little opposition in the region. This is an ominous warning to China.
Australia’s plan to buy submarines is just one part of the country’s deepening security cooperation with Britain and the United States to counter China. Next steps could include cooperation in other areas such as hypersonic missiles, cyber operations, quantum computing… All of these could make AUKUS even more important to the workforce. regional military balance against any other group such as the Quad; or the Five Power Defense Agreement (FPDA) between Australia, Great Britain, Malaysia, New Zealand and Singapore.
Immediately, Beijing spoke out against AUKUS. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning accused the establishment of the AUKUS trilateral security partnership with the aim of inciting a military confrontation through military cooperation. Beijing is also concerned that AUKUS activities increase the risk of nuclear proliferation and promote an arms race in the Asia-Pacific region.
Outside of China , however, reactions to AUKUS across the Indo-Pacific have generally been positive—or at least not negative—since the treaty was announced, experts say . in September 2021.
Some countries, mainly in Southeast Asia, are concerned about the possibility of nuclear proliferation. But overall, most countries in the region either support AUKUS or avoid openly opposing it, suggesting widespread concerns about China’s military build-up, as well as China’s growing power. Country in the region.
This is a positive signal for AUKUS in aligning with additional allies and partners for peacetime deterrence purposes.
As a staunch US ally with increasingly tense relations with China, Japan has always supported AUKUS. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida once noted that AUKUS will “contribute to the peace and stability of the Indo-Pacific region amid an increasingly serious security environment”. Last December, Tokyo published a new National Security Strategy, which described Beijing’s military activities as “the greatest and unprecedented strategic challenge”.
Hoover Institute scholar Michael Auslin said that by participating in AUKUS, Tokyo is likely to seek out areas of the AUKUS program, such as quantum computing, to enhance cooperation, rather than related aspects. to the use of nuclear energy.
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Meanwhile, South Korea, another key US ally, has not formally weighed in on AUKUS due to South Korea’s focus on North Korea and its attempt to maintain a fragile balance between China and the United States.
But observers said that South Korea is said to be looking to increase interaction and potentially join the QUAD Quartet. President Yoon’s administration is also willing to join the US-led Chip 4 alliance in an effort to diversify semiconductor production out of China.
According to Derek Grossman, senior defense analyst at Rand Corp., the only strong AUKUS backer in Southeast Asia is the Philippines, another US ally also facing growing pressure. China’s growth in the South China Sea. For Manila, AUKUS is a useful addition to the regional security architecture. In 2021, Philippine Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. noted that AUKUS “should restore and balance rather than destabilize”.
Meanwhile, Singapore has not issued a statement. Neither Indonesia nor Malaysia expressed any objection. Notably, Thailand has so far avoided commenting on AUKUS, presumably to maintain a friendly and productive relationship with China.
India is the country that has the greatest influence on the success of the US Indo-Pacific strategy. The country has not considered AUKUS publicly, but in a very remarkable move, New Delhi in 2022 voted against China and Russia’s efforts in the IAEA to break the treaty on the grounds that it Using nuclear power as a submarine engine violates the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
The fact that most countries in the Indo-Pacific strongly or cautiously support AUKUS, or refuse to condemn AUKUS, will increase Beijing’s anxiety about the geostrategic and military implications.
Source: diendandoanhnghiep