Aukus pact will not change Indo-Pacific power balance anytime soon

THE new trilateral defence partnership among Australia, Britain and the United States announced last week that would enable Canberra to get eight nuclear-powered submarines drew a predictable response from Beijing. What none of the three parties seems to have factored in was France's furious reaction.

The so-called Aukus pact also includes Australia acquiring long-range strike capability, unmanned undersea drones, and artificial intelligence and quantum computing technologies. But the new deal also meant cancelling a contract worth up to A$90 billion (S$88 billion) with France to build 12 new diesel-powered submarines to replace Australia's ageing and trouble-plagued Collin class fleet. Given that the French submarine was designed to be nuclear-powered and that it was Canberra's insistence that the boats be modified to fit diesel engines that caused delays, Paris may have good reason to be miffed. But beyond the acrimony that goes with any soured deal, the pact is not going to change the power balance in the Indo-Pacific anytime soon. It will take more than a decade for Australia's nuclear-powered subs to fully come into service.

So, what is the Aukus pact about? The timing of the announcement should be noted. US President Joe Biden has taken a beating in opinion polls after the Kabul pullout. He certainly needs to tilt the narrative away from the Kabul debacle which has been under relentless attack from his political opponents. The Aukus pact may help to outflank his critics; his administration will be proclaimed as being totally focused on the China threat and Pacific stability, rather than the peripheral issue of the fate of Afghanistan.