America’s second highest-ranked diplomat says the US needs to give more assurances to partners Australia and the UK that the AUKUS project is going ahead.
| The US could do more to reassure partners Australia and the UK on the progress of AUKUS, says the country’s new deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, who admitted more effort was needed to counter China’s “propaganda” on the trilateral nuclear-powered submarine deal.
“We could tell the story better,” Dr Campbell, who has also been the Biden administration’s top Indo-Pacific envoy, told“There’s a huge number of things that have happened, but I don’t think we’ve done enough to tell that story to the Australian people,” he said, “The truth is the steps that have been taken towards AUKUS in all three countries are very substantial.” Kurt Campbell this week: “At the heart of this is the largest increase in investment in the United States submarine program since its inception decades ago.” Dr Campbell’s comments, his first to the media since being confirmed in his new role by the US Senate, come amid growing doubts about Washington’s capacity to deliver an initial three used US-made Virginia class submarines to Australia by 2032, a cornerstone of the AUKUS agreement. The US needs to ramp up production to just over two vessels a year to meet its own naval requirements before it’s ready to sell second-half craft to Australia, but funding and production capacity constraints have thrown doubt on this. Dr Campbell dismissed concerns about this, saying the budgetary papers were simply acknowledging the reality about short-term shipyard production capacity, which would be expanded. “At the heart of this is the largest increase in investment in the United States submarine program since its inception decades ago,” he told theThe US budget has set aside $US3.9 billion in 2025 and $US11.1 billion over five years to build up its submarine industrial base. A further $US3.3 billion is included in a so-called supplemental bill that could be passed within several weeks. Referencing wartime British prime minister Winston Churchill’s comment that “Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted”, Dr Campbell said AUKUS would be successful, but would take time. “American democracy can be messy. It’s been described as sausage making, but essentially, fundamentally, the one thing that I can assure is the support, fundamentally, in the United States for Australia.”US bureaucracy itself, he said, was changing to ensure the success of the AUKUS project. “There are bureaucracies around the US government that have to adapt to the new circumstances that are part of the AUKUS mission.” For one, changes were being made to archaic regulations known as the Missile Technology Control Regime that govern sharing of information among America’s own bureaucracies “We are in the midst of a massive sea change. No two partners are as important strategically as Australia and Great Britain and that process of elevating both countries with respect to military and technological process is underway,” he said.Chinese Foreign Minister Wang YiHe said a bigger concern was still around China’s use of the AUKUS pact to stir up trouble among Australia’s South-East Asian neighbours. “China sees AUKUS as a direct threat, not just for what it represents militarily, but the potential to increase the level of allied deterrence in the Indo-Pacific,” he said. “They have been busy with their propaganda and their messaging throughout South-East Asia and in the Pacific. I would simply note that much of that messaging is based on inaccurate understanding of AUKUS.” He said China’s dominance in critical minerals, essential for defence technology, was only just starting to become a problem for Australia.“Yes, they found that certain things, such as coal and iron, there was no substitute for. But what we’ve seen more recently is with rare earths and other component elements of the digital economy, where China has taken steps to essentially flood the market and try to force Australian firms out of business. “So while I do believe that while Australian and relations have generally stabilised, just as US-China relations have stabilised, it’s a wary stabilisation on all sides.”
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