Beijing launches major strike in attempt to sink AUKUS pact

A new attempt by China to undermine Australia’s AUKUS submarine agreement with the US and Britain has raised fresh tensions with the Albanese government.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong with her Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi. Picture: AFP

A new attempt by China to undermine Australia’s AUKUS submarine agreement with the US and Britain has raised fresh tensions with the Albanese government, which dismissed Beijing’s escalation as riddled with “incorrect ­assertions”.

Beijing laid out the case it will take to a high-level UN meeting in New York in August in a 32-page report, titled “A Dangerous Conspiracy”, published by two institutions affiliated with the Chinese government.

The centrepiece of Beijing’s new attack on Australia’s pact with its allies was the claim – promptly shot down by Canberra – that AUKUS was a furtive ­attempt to get nuclear weapons.

A spokesman for the Xi administration said the report gave “detailed statistics and facts” and “further evidence” for China’s campaign against AUKUS, which has rattled Beijing.

The AUKUS stoush comes days after Beijing praised Foreign Minister Penny Wong for “positive elements” in her recent comments about China, amid signalling it would soon end an almost two-year ban on Australian coal.

A spokeswoman at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said there were “numerous incorrect assertions” in the new report, whose full title was: “A Dangerous Conspiracy: The Nuclear Proliferation Risk of the Nuclear-powered Submarines Collaboration in the Context of AUKUS”.

“The government has been very clear that Australia does not, and will not, seek nuclear weapons,” she said.

“Australia’s decision to acquire conventionally armed, ­nuclear-powered submarines is something we are pursuing openly and transparently.”

The spokeswoman said Australia, the US and Britain would implement “the strongest possible non-proliferation standards” to maintain the strength and integrity of the global nuclear non-proliferation regime.

Beijing began lobbying against the AUKUS pact almost as soon as it was announced in September 2021, and President Xi Jinping personally joined that effort in a major speech to ASEAN in ­November.

Former prime minister Scott Morrison has said China’s campaign of coercion against Australia was the reason he drove the AUKUS arrangement, which has bipartisan support.

Beijing’s new report is part of a choreographed effort to block or delay the pact at a UN non-­proliferation conference in New York, scheduled for August 1.

That conference – the 10th Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-­Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons – will be the setting for a major diplomatic showdown between Beijing and the US, UK and Australia.

The report said Australia’s interest in the first decades of the Cold War demonstrated a long-held desire for nuclear weapons, whose resurgence “cannot be ruled out” and cited Hugh White – a former senior Defence official and one of Australia’s most prominent critics of AUKUS – as an example of “advocates” in Australia who were “consistently advocating the possession of nuclear weapons”.

Beijing has the world’s third largest nuclear weapons stockpile after the US and Russia, which it is expanding with a speed that has alarmed capitals around the world. China’s first nuclear test took place in 1964, and a was top priority for Mao Zedong, founder of the People’s Republic.

Beijing also has a growing fleet of nuclear-powered submarines, one of which was reported to have recently stalked HMAS Parramatta in the East China Sea.

China’s fleet includes the People’s Liberation Army’s Navy Type 094 vessel, which carry nuclear warheads and have a range of up to 9000km, according to the Centre for Strategic and Inter­national Studies.

The new Albanese government has angered Beijing by committing to the submarine project.

Chinese party state media exploded after Defence Minister Richard Marles made a trip to Washington, where progress on AUKUS was a key agenda item.

In a bombastic editorial, the Global Times said Mr Marles was “one of Canberra’s most aggressive actors against China” and indistinguishable from his “extremely anti-China” predecessor, Peter Dutton.

China’s Foreign Ministry embraced the new report as a key plank in Beijing’s campaign to raise “the international community’s concerns” about AUKUS.

“The US, the UK and Australia need to respond to the concerns of the international community, faithfully fulfil their non-proliferation obligations and revoke the erroneous decision of nuclear submarine co-operation,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin on Wednesday evening.

The previous and current Australian governments have repeatedly denied AUKUS would lead to subs with nuclear weapons.

Anthony Albanese and Senator Wong met a fortnight ago with UN International Atomic Energy Agency director-general Rafael Mariano Grossi in Australia, following earlier meetings with the US and UK.

After the meeting in Australia, the head of the UN nuclear agency said the “non-proliferation commitments” given in his meetings with the US, UK and Australia had given him confidence AUKUS would pose no proliferation risk.

Gareth Evans, Labor’s longest-serving foreign minister, said Beijing’s nuclear proliferation claims were “clearly over-egged”

“There is no public support for acquiring nuclear weapons of our own, and all Australian political parties have ruled it out as unconscionable,” said Mr Evans, co-chair of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament.