![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() In the face of the Chinese challenge - and Russia’s invasion of pro-Western Ukraine - Britain is also moving to beef up its military capabilities, Sunak’s office said Monday. While Australia has ruled out deploying atomic weapons, its submarine plan marks a significant new stage in the US-led attempt to counter growing Chinese military power, including Beijing’s construction of a sophisticated naval fleet and turning artificial islands into offshore bases. It will be built on the base of a British design, with US technology, and “significant investments in all three industrial bases,” Sullivan said. The new model, also nuclear-powered and carrying conventional weapons, is a longer-term project and will be dubbed the SSN-AUKUS, he said. Three conventionally armed, nuclear-powered Virginia class vessels will be sold “over the course of the 2030s,” with the “possibility of going up to five if that is needed,” Sullivan said. The partnership with Australia, which involves sharing secret nuclear technology previously only given to Britain, is “a decades-long, maybe a century-long commitment,” Sullivan said. However, with nuclear propulsion, the new submarine fleet will add substantial new strength to the Western alliance seeking to push back against China’s own military expansion.īiden’s national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, told reporters flying on Air Force One to California that the submarine plan illustrated Washington’s long-term commitment to guarding “peace and stability” in the Asia-Pacific region. ![]() President Joe Biden was hosting his Australian and British counterparts, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, on a US naval base in San Diego, California, to announce the plan.Īustralia, which joined the newly formed AUKUS group with Washington and London 18 months ago, will not be getting nuclear weapons. Australia will buy as many as five US nuclear-powered submarines and later build a new model with US and British technology under an ambitious plan to beef up Western muscle across the Asia-Pacific in the face of a rising China, a US official said Monday. ![]()
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