A new troublemaker

AUKUS is another move by the US to undermine cooperation and multilateralism in Southeast Asia

AUKUS is a tripartite security partnership established by the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia in September 2021. With the view of countering China's influence in the region, the trilateral alliance is the latest example of the US' bid to create sub-multilateral security regimes. AUKUS is, in essence, another "Anglo-Saxon" clique led by the US. The three countries are all nations that tend to adopt aggressive strategies. Therefore, their alliance will pose many challenges to the stability of the Asia-Pacific region.

First, under the pretext of bolstering nuclear deterrence, AUKUS is in fact aimed at tilting the regional balance of power in favor of the US' alliance system. With the focus of major-country competition shifting to the oceans in Asia, the tripartite defense partnership which is designed to strengthen military deterrence is reminiscent of the Cold War era. During the Cold War, to counter the threats from the Soviet Union, the US proposed the building of a multilateral nuclear force under NATO command by producing a fleet of submarines and warships armed with nuclear-armed Polaris ballistic missiles.

Under the AUKUS agreement, Australia will be able to build nuclear-powered submarines with technology provided by the US and the UK. It marks a shift of the US deterrence strategy targeting potential rivals in the Asia-Pacific region from conventional deterrence to a combination of conventional deterrence and nuclear deterrence. It also reveals the US' intention to reactivate its nuclear assets inherited from the Cold War era.

Second, the AUKUS alliance will disturb the balance of power in the South Pacific and provoke an arms race in the region. At the same time, the trilateral partnership's cooperation with the QUAD, a security dialogue among the US, Japan, Australia and India, has strengthened strategic relations among the UK, Australia and Japan.

Third, it undermines global and regional arms control regimes such as the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and the Treaty on the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone, threatening global and regional stability.

The creation of small cliques such as AUKUS aggravates bloc confrontation and ideological differences. As part of their so-called value diplomacy, US President Joe Biden and then UK prime minister Boris Johnson signed the New Atlantic Charter in 2021, signaling that the US and its allies are returning to the World War II and Cold War strategies.

To prevent the negative spillover effects of major-country competition, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations adheres to the policy of non-alignment and centrality in international relations and refuses to take sides in the China-US competition. However, the US-proposed initiatives such as the Build Back Better World Initiative (B3W) and "Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity" are all intended to force ASEAN countries to pick sides between China and the US.

The US' replacing the concept of the "Asia-Pacific" with the "Indo-Pacific" undermines the existing regional order that features cooperation and multilateralism. The US puts the security interests of its small cliques above the overall interests of the Asia-Pacific region, which hinders the process of regional integration and makes it more difficult for the region to get rid of Cold War-style bloc confrontation.

AUKUS also undermines the centrality of ASEAN in the traditional regional security paradigm. By portraying China as a "threat" to the "rules-based international order", the US, the UK and Australia are attempting to gain support for their plan to alter the existing regional order and develop a new security regime. It will make it more difficult for ASEAN to defuse tensions in the region, and render the current security system more unstable.

Moreover, the trilateral partnership is eroding the cohesion of the ASEAN mechanism, and squeezing the space for ASEAN to maneuver in regional security affairs. Based on the AUKUS partnership, the US is also bribing ASEAN members such as the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam to jump on its anti-China bandwagon, which undermines the centrality of ASEAN, and weakens the unity of member states in their attitude toward the China-US competition. As a result, countries will resort to sub-multilateral solutions for security issues.

In the short term, the AUKUS alliance will serve as the bridgehead for the integrated deterrence targeting China deployed by the US in Asia-Pacific. On March 13, the three members announced more details of how Australia will acquire nuclear-powered submarines. The advancement of the security pact will have a strong impact on the security environment of China's surrounding regions.

To tackle the challenges from AUKUS, it is imperative for China to uphold genuine multilateralism based on international law under the framework of the United Nations and to lay bare the true face of the false multilateralism peddled by the US, which only serves the interests of the US itself at the expense of other countries.

China should not be distracted by the US' containment strategy and should stick to its development path. It needs to strive to achieve high-quality development while maintaining high-level security, and build up its strategic resilience. The country should also enhance cooperation with ASEAN countries and strengthen the unity among Asian countries. Facing the containment and suppression strategy of the US, China needs to optimize its blue economy partnership with ASEAN and steadily promote consultations on the Code of Conduct of the South China Sea.

China should also call for AUKUS to increase transparency in its marine defense cooperation, and maintain close contact with international organizations such as the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN Regional Centre for Peace and Disarmament in the Asia-Pacific region, and the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs, keeping a close eye on the progress of the AUKUS defense cooperation.

Zhu Feng is the dean of the School of International Studies at Nanjing University. Wang Xue is a doctoral student of the Institute of International Studies at Nanjing University. The authors contributed this article to China Watch, a think tank powered by China Daily. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

Contact the editor at editor@chinawatch.cn.