US submarine deal reshapes Indo-Pacific relations

The United States and Britain are sharing nuclear-powered submarine technology with Australia with the aim of ensuring peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region, but China and France are angry at the formation of the new security alliance.

The U.S. had previously only shared the nuclear propulsion technology with Britain, which allows submarines to travel faster and stay submerged for longer periods on time.

Ten years ago under President Barack Obama, the U.S. began discussing the need to focus more attention on the Indo-Pacific region while pivoting away from conflicts in the Middle East.

Under President Joe Biden, the U.S. has now withdrawn its troops from Afghanistan while finding that tensions with China have only grown.

In the Pacific, the U.S. and others have been concerned about China's aggressive actions in the South China Sea and its antipathy toward Japan, Taiwan and Australia.

Dr. Timothy Heath, a Senior International Defense Researcher with the RAND corporation, said the Indo-Pacific region is expected to be a driving part of the global economy, and China is becoming "a very powerful strategic competitor."

"It stretches into trade, technology, investment, and the United States, with its allies and partners, are taking bolder and bolder steps to strengthen the US position in Asia," Heath said. "This agreement is just the latest indication of that."

China claims the new Australia, United Kingdom and United States alliance, reffered to as AUKUS,  would severely damage regional peace and stability, and jeopardize efforts to halt nuclear weapon proliferation.

"What China wants is to set the terms for that peace and stability," Heath said. "In China's view, the way that is done is if countries scale back their alliance commitments with the US, cooperate more with China, comply more with Chinese demands and expectations."

Heath says bi-lateral relations between Australia and China deteriorated in recent years due to political disputes over China's actions in Taiwan or Tibet, which resulted in China punishing Australia economically.

"Australians are happy to take Chinese money and happy to trade with them, but they refuse to change their security arrangements or to change their policies to accommodate Chinese political sensitivities," Heath added.

France is also furious with the new AUKUS initiative, as it will lose a nearly $100 billion deal to build diesel submarines for Australia.

As such, its anger on purely a commercial level would be understandable, particularly because France, since Britain's handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997, is the only European nation to have significant territorial possessions or a permanent military presence in the Pacific.

"The French are, to put it mildly, furious," said Matthew Lee, a diplomatic writer for the Associated Press.

"They say that they were excluded from any consultation with this new initiative," Lee added. The European Union more broadly says it was also excluded and that this is a big mistake and very short-sighted by the Biden administration and the Australians and the Brits, because all of them have an interest in countering China's increasing influence."