Australia has “absolutely not” given the US any commitment as part of the AUKUS negotiations that it would join its top security ally in a potential war over the status of Taiwan, Australian Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles said yesterday.
Marles, who is also Australian minister for defence, made the comment while defending Australia’s multi-decade plan to acquire nuclear-powered submarines, with help from the US and the UK, at a total cost of up to US$368 billion between now and the mid-2050s.
Marles told the Australian Broadcasting Corp’s (ABC) Insiders program that China’s rapid military buildup “shapes the strategic landscape in which we live.”
Photo: Reuters
The AUKUS submarines would back up Australia’s interest in protecting trade and freedom of navigation and flight in the South China Sea, he said.
Marles said he would not speculate about a future conflict over Taiwan, saying that it was “a completely separate question.”
The US is planning to sell Australia at least three, and as many as five, Virginia-class submarines in the 2030s. Canberra is attempting to fill the “capability gap” between the retirement of its diesel-electric Collins-class submarines and the entry into service of British-designed, Australian-built nuclear-powered submarines from the 2040s.
ABC’s David Speers asked Marles whether Australia had explicitly or implicitly given the US a commitment that it would join the ally in the event of a conflict over Taiwan, in return for access to the Virginia-class submarines.
“The answer to that is of course not,” Marles said. “Of course not — and nor was one sought. I’ve listened to that conjecture from a number of commentators. It is plain wrong.”
Marles said that “the moment that there is a flag on the first of those Virginia-class submarines in the early 2030s is the moment that that submarine will be under the complete control of the Australian government of the day.”
He said the nuclear-powered submarines would have “the capacity to operate in the context of war,” but the primary intent was to “make our contribution to the stability of the region, to the collective security of the region.”
Marles was reluctant to name China as a threat to Australia’s shipping lanes, but said that Beijing is “seeking to shape the world around it in a way that we’ve not seen it do prior to the last decade.”
He said that while a lot of Australia’s trade is with China, “all of our trade to Japan, all of our trade to South Korea — two of our top five trading partners — goes through the South China Sea.”
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