Sydney
\nAustralia formally embarked Monday on a hotly-contested programme to equip its navy with nuclear-powered submarines in a new defence alliance with Britain and the United States.
\nDefence Minister Peter Dutton joined US and British diplomats in signing an agreement allowing the exchange of sensitive \u201cnaval nuclear propulsion information\u201d between their nations.
\nIt is the first agreement on the technology to be publicly signed since the three countries announced in September the formation of a defence alliance, AUKUS, to confront strategic tensions in the Pacific where China-US rivalry is growing.
\n\u201cThe agreement will permit cooperation, which will further improve our mutual defence posture,\u201d US President Joe Biden said in a statement on Friday ahead of Dutton\u2019s signing ceremony in Canberra with US Charge d\u2019Affaires Michael Goldman and British High Commissioner (ambassador) Victoria Treadell.
\nUnder the AUKUS deal, Australia would obtain eight state-of-the-arts, nuclear-powered submarines capable of stealthy, long-range missions. It also provides for sharing cyber, artificial intelligence, quantum and unspecified undersea capabilities.
\nThe agreement has angered China, which describes it as an \u201cextremely irresponsible\u201d threat to stability in the region.
\nIt has also infuriated France, which discovered at the last moment that its own diesel-electric submarine contract with Australia — recently estimated to be worth Aus$90 billion ($65 billion) — had been scrapped.
\nAustralian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been unapologetic about his handling of the agreement, insisting it was in his country\u2019s national interest and that he knew it would \u201cruffle some feathers\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sydney Australia formally embarked Monday on a hotly-contested programme to equip its navy with nuclear-powered submarines in a new defence alliance with Britain and the United States. Defence Minister Peter Dutton joined US and British diplomats in signing an agreement allowing the exchange of sensitive \u201cnaval nuclear propulsion information\u201d between their nations. It is the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[423,308,444],"class_list":{"0":"post-228943","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world","7":"tag-australia","8":"tag-uk","9":"tag-us"},"yoast_head":"\n