AUKUS Agreement Shows Recognition of China's Military Power, Expert Says - USNI News

Australia has become “something of a test case” in China’s push to dominate the Indo-Pacific economically and militarily, the head of Australia’s National Security College said Monday.

Rory Medcalf, speaking at a Center for New American Security Forum, said “what we’ve seen in Australia the last five or six years [became] a wake-up call” of Beijing trying to impose “a veto over the sovereignty of nations.”

He termed the technology sharing agreement between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, known as AUKUS, and building Canberra’s first nuclear-powered submarines, “as a recognition of the challenge from China.” He said this step by the Biden administration goes beyond Washington’s treaty with Canberra or its existing sharing of military intelligence as a positive recognition “of the trajectory of Chinese military power.”