BEIJING (TASS): Australia’s acquisition of nuclear submarine technology from the United States and Great Britain could provoke a new round of the arms race in the region, including in the field of nuclear weapons. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said this on Wednesday in telephone conversations with his colleagues from Malaysia and Brunei.
“Nuclear submarines are powerful weapons in terms of strategic security, they are also capable of carrying nuclear weapons. Such actions by Australia destroy the strategic balance in the region, as well as turn all of its obligations under the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty into a phony letter “, – he noted.
“This poses a real threat to the states of the region, it is possible that other countries will want to follow this example, which will provoke a new round of the arms race, right up to the crossing of the nuclear threshold,” the diplomat concluded.
Also, spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry Hua Chunying told a regular briefing on Wednesday that he creation of AUKUS, a trilateral security pact in the Indo-Pacific Region by Australia, the UK, and the US, came as a result of efforts aimed at deliberately abusing a loophole in international law.
“Simply put, it is a situation when three states conspired to abuse a loophole in international law to openly proliferate nuclear weapons,” Hua Chunying said.
“The IAEA guarantees and monitoring of Australian nuclear submarines will create a precedent which will affect rights and obligations of all NPT signatories and cause far-reaching consequences for the international non-proliferation regime,” the diplomat added.
“It is in no way an issue to be addressed by the IAEA Secretariat with Australia, the UK, and the US. It is a problem that should be settled by all states that participate in this mechanism,” she concluded.