“I know that China at the NPT review conference will criticise the partnership,although I also think that what China fails to do is to recognise that it’s China’s own actions in the region that have led the partners to close gaps in our security,” Scheinman said at a US state department briefing in Asia on Tuesday night.
“There is no violation of the NPT,and we’ll be very clear about that at the NPT review conference.”
Under the deal,the US and UK will provide nuclear submarine technology to Australia to modernise its ageing diesel submarine fleet by the 2030s. But China has argued the deal sets a dangerous precedent by allowing nuclear actors to transfer technology to non-nuclear states. That argument has fuelled concern in South-east Asia,particularly inMalaysia,which raised the deal with Foreign Minister Penny Wong in June and warned it could lead to a nuclear arms race in the region.
President Xi Jinping,who met with Indonesian President Joko Widodo on Monday,was expected to raise AUKUS during their discussions. China’sstatement on their meeting in Beijing did not specifically mention AUKUS,but Indonesia did “take note” of China’s Global Security Initiative and said it would strengthen “communication between the agencies in charge of maritime affairs”.
Beijing has been campaigning for months against the AUKUS deal,culminating in the release of the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association and China Institute of Nuclear Industry Strategy report last week ahead of the UN treaty meeting. The report claimed the AUKUS deal would set a “dangerous precedent” and would have a profound negative impact on “global strategic balance and stability”.
Scheinman said the US would be “very clear” that AUKUS was “a system for nuclear propulsion,not for transfers of nuclear weapons”.