The United States, Australia and the United Kingdom have signed a security agreement that will provide Australia with American technology to build nuclear submarines. China criticized the pact, which pursues strategic interests in the Indo-Pacific.

The United States, Great Britain and Australia have forged a security pact for the important Indo-Pacific region of strategic importance. US President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and their Australian colleague Scott Morrison presented the partnership in a virtual ad to which they were connected from their respective capitals.

It’s about ensuring long-term peace and stability in the region, Biden said. Under the terms of the agreement, the United States will provide Australia with the technology that will allow the country to build nuclear-powered submarines. US government officials emphasized that the provision of nuclear weapons is unplanned.

China condemns the security pact

“We will continue to honor all of our nuclear non-proliferation commitments,” Morrison said. The Chinese embassy in Washington condemned the security pact. The countries “must not form an exclusive bloc that attacks or damages the interests of third parties. In particular, they must abandon their Cold War mentality and their ideological prejudices,” said embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu when asked by Reuters.

According to the US, the association also provides for cooperation in the fields of artificial intelligence, quantum technology and cyber problems. It is not directed against a specific country. Biden has taken care to show the growing influence of China’s borders. He identified the Indo-Pacific region in particular as a key region.

Competition of the United States with China

Ships should have conventional weapons, President Biden emphasized. Australia would be the seventh country in the world to have submarines powered by nuclear reactors. With the pact, Biden, on the one hand, will bring Australia closer to the United States to counter Chinese interests in the Indo-Pacific region. You have to react to the current strategic situation in the region, Biden said. And how it could develop in the future.

The Biden government likes to repeat that this is a competition between autocratic systems and liberal democracies, between China and the West. To this end, the US, Britain and Australia want to exchange more information in the areas of cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and the ability to hit distant targets militarily.

On the other hand, Australia already had a contract for the construction of twelve submarines; that is to say, with France. Doubts about the deal had grown in recent weeks. Now France has to take a back seat, behind the global interests of the United States.

Britain rejects criticism

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian described the new agreement as a “pat on the back.” Britain has now rejected the criticism: Australia’s decision was made there, Defense Minister Ben Wallace said on Sky News. “We have no reason to turn the French against us. They are among our closest military allies in Europe.”

Biden praises France for its military presence in the Indo-Pacific and promises that there will be no rift between America’s allies in the Atlantic and those in the Pacific. Some Europeans may see it differently.