AUKUS is not the threat to the Asia-Pacufic region: US admiral

John Aquilino said criticism of the security pact between three nations who have been ‘deep allies’ for years was misplaced.

John Aquilino is welcomed to Darwin’s Robertson Barracks with a set of Aussie footwear. Picture: Glenn Campbell

America’s most senior military commander in the Indo-Pacific has defended the AUKUS security pact while in Indonesia for multilateral military exercises, saying the only nation in the region generating nuclear proliferation concerns is China.

US Indo-Pacific Commander John Aquilino said criticism of the trilateral security agreement between the US, UK and Australia – under which Canberra hopes to secure nuclear-propelled submarines – was misplaced and the AUKUS relationship “was three nations who have been deep allies for years”.

“We’re watching the largest military build-up in history since WWII by the PRC (People’s Republic of China),” Admiral Aquilino said on Friday at the conclusion of Garuda Shield, an annual defence exercise between Indonesia and the US, which this year has been expanded to include Australia, Singapore and Japan as well as nine observer nations.

Admiral Aquilino said he had read comments referring to concerns that the AUKUS pact, and Australia’s pursuit of nuclear-propelled submarine technology, would lead to nuclear weapons proliferation.

China is highly critical of AUKUS, which it claims involves the “illegal transfer of weapons-grade nuclear materials”, and has been lobbying against it at an international review of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty this month.

Indonesian diplomats, too, have been urging fellow non-aligned nations at the NPT review in New York to help close what Jakarta says is a legal loophole in the treaty allowing non-nuclear states – such as Australia and Brazil – to violate the spirit of the pact by acquiring nuclear-propulsion technology.

But Admiral Aquilino said on Friday: “This program has nothing to do with nuclear weapons. If you’d like to talk about nuclear weapons and the concern for a nuclear arms race, all you have to do is look into the PRC.

“Three hundred nuclear silos going in as we sit here today and the only nation increasing the nuclear arsenal right now is the PRC. So let’s look at actions and let’s not talk about words.”

Indonesia’s foreign ministry has insisted it is not singling Australia out for criticism and it – along with Malaysia – is simply concerned the AUKUS pact could set a dangerous precedent, and potentially also trigger a regional arms race. But whether those concerns are universally shared across the Indonesian administration is unclear.

Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto has said he “fully” understands and respects Australia’s right to pursue its national security interests through AUKUS. On Friday, Indonesian military chief Andika Perkasa also said AUKUS posed no impediment to heightened defence co-operation between Australia and Indonesia, and membership of any one security pact was far less important than shared common goals. “The US is part of NATO (while) others like Singapore are not part of NATO, Australia is not part of NATO,” General Andika said. “So to me, working with anyone should not be prohibited. We should have the freedom to work with everyone. That’s my take. As long as we share common goals and common hope on what we can do as a team, let’s do it.”

This month’s Garuda Shield exercises were of an unprecedented scale with some 5000 troops from Indonesia, US, Australia, Japan and Singapore participating in drills including parachute and amphibious landings and live-fire exercises.

While Indonesian and US military officials have denied the expanded Garuda Shield was designed to prepare for a combined military response against any particular nation, Admiral Aquilino said “our forces, operating together, delivers a deterrent effect against any destabilising effort in the region”.

“The destabilising actions by the PRC as it applied to the threatening activities and actions against Taiwan is exactly what we are trying to avoid,” he said. “I can tell you from my seat I spend every waking minute doing everything to ensure we are preventing conflict in the region. Every day we try to prevent war.”