China warned on Tuesday that Australia, Britain and the United States were treading a \u201cpath of error and danger\u201d after they unveiled a nuclear-powered submarines deal.
\nAustralia announced on Monday it would buy up to five US nuclear-powered submarines, then build a new model with US and British technology under an ambitious plan to bulk up Western muscle across the Asia-Pacific in the face of a rising China.
\nUS President Joe Biden has stressed that Australia, which joined the alliance with Washington and London known as AUKUS 18 months ago, will not be getting nuclear weapons.
\nHowever, acquiring submarines powered by nuclear reactors puts Australia in an elite club and at the forefront of US-led efforts to push back against Chinese military expansion.
\nWang Wenbin, China\u2019s foreign ministry spokesman, said: \u201cThe latest joint statement from the US, UK and Australia demonstrates that the three countries, for the sake of their own geopolitical interests, completely disregard the concerns of the international communities and are walking further and further down the path of error and danger.\u201d
\nWang accused the three Western allies of inciting an arms race, saying the security deal was \u201ca typical case of Cold War mentality\u201d.
\nThe sale of submarines \u201cconstitutes a severe nuclear proliferation risk, and violates the aims and objectives of the Non-Proliferation Treaty\u201d, Wang said at a regular news conference in Beijing.
\nMonday\u2019s announcement came at an event at a naval base in San Diego, California, where Biden hosted Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
\nWith a US Virginia-class nuclear submarine moored behind the trio\u2019s podium, Biden said the United States had \u201csafeguarded stability in the Indo-Pacific for decades\u201d and that the submarine alliance would bolster \u201cthe prospect of peace for decades to come\u201d.
\nAlbanese said the deal represents the biggest single investment in Australia\u2019s defence capability \u201cin all of our history\u201d.
\nThe submarines are expected to be equipped with long-range cruise missiles, offering a potent deterrent.
\nAlbanese predicted that the wider economic impact at home would be akin to the introduction of the automobile industry in the country after World War II. The Australian government estimates the multi-decade project will cost almost $40 billion in the first 10 years, and create an estimated 20,000 jobs.
\nAlbanese underlined that Australia was now only the second country, after Britain, to be granted access to US naval nuclear secrets.
\nThree conventionally armed, nuclear-powered Virginia class vessels will be sold \u201cover the course of the 2030s\u201d, with the \u201cpossibility of going up to five if that is needed\u201d, said Biden\u2019s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan.
\nBritain and Australia will then embark on building a new model, also nuclear-powered and carrying conventional weapons, dubbed the SSN-AUKUS. This will be a British design, with US technology, and with \u201csignificant investments in all three industrial bases\u201d, Sullivan said.
\nWhile Australia has ruled out deploying atomic weapons, its submarine plan marks a significant new stage in the confrontation with China, which has built a sophisticated naval fleet and turned artificial islands into offshore bases in the Pacific.
\nIn the face of the Chinese challenge \u2014 and Russia\u2019s invasion of pro-Western Ukraine \u2014 Britain is also moving to beef up its military capabilities, Sunak\u2019s office said on Monday.
\nMore than $6 billion in additional funding over the next two years will \u201creplenish and bolster vital ammunition stocks, modernise the UK\u2019s nuclear enterprise and fund the next phase of the AUKUS submarine programme,\u201d Downing Street said.
\nAustralia had previously been on track to replace its ageing fleet of diesel-powered submarines with a $66 billion package of French vessels, also conventionally powered.
\nThe abrupt announcement by Canberra that it was backing out of that deal and entering the AUKUS project sparked a brief but unusually furious row between all three countries and their close ally France.
\nCompared with the Collins-class submarines due to be retired by Australia, the Virginia-class is almost twice as long and carries 132 crew members, not 48.
\nA senior US official said that the British navy should get its \u201cstate of the art\u201d SSN-AUKUS vessels in the late 2030s and Australia only in the early 2040s.
\nIn the meantime, Australian sailors, engineers and other personnel will be training with their US and British partners to acquire expertise, while British and US submarines make regular visits to Australian ports.
\nChina\u2019s leader, Xi Jinping, made a fiery statement last week accusing the United States of leading a Western effort at \u201call-round containment, encirclement and suppression of China\u201d.
\nBut Washington says Beijing is alarming countries across the Asia-Pacific with its threats to invade the self-governing democracy of Taiwan.
\n\u201cWhat we\u2019ve seen is a series of provocative steps that China has undertaken under the leadership of Xi Jinping over the last five to 10 years,\u201d the senior US official said.
\n\u201cThis is an attempt to defend and secure the operating system of the Indo-Pacific. \u201c<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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