The US, UK, and Australia have left Canada out of a significant trilateral security pact in which the three countries will share advanced military technology in a thinly concealed partnership to counter China’s rising aggression in the Pacific.
As part of the pact, the US and UK will help the Australian military acquire eight nuclear-powered submarines — technology which the US has only ever shared with the UK, never Canada.
The alliance — which is being called AUKUS — addresses many concerns Australia has over increased hostility and the possibility of a physical confrontation with China.
According to Tom Tugendhat, a legislator with the UK’s ruling Conservative party, “The reason for all of this is clear — China.”
“After years of bullying and trade hostility and watching regional neighbours like the Philippines see encroachment into their waters, Australia didn’t have a choice. And nor did the US or UK.”
Tugendhat also says that the alliance is essential to supporting allies like Japan, who have also felt the looming figure of China just off its shores.
The #AUKUS agreement is a great step forward. There’s more to do. Read this thread for some thoughts and this @CISOZ paper I wrote in June for some details.https://t.co/oMd0t9XmNF https://t.co/oGVVUHE6te
— Tom Tugendhat (@TomTugendhat) September 16, 2021
US President Joe Biden seemingly agreed and mentioned ensuring peace: in other words, avoiding war.
“We all recognize the imperative of ensuring peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific over the long term,” Joe Biden said in a press statement.
“We need to be able to address both the current strategic environment in the region and how it may evolve because the future of each of our nations – and indeed the world – depends on a free and open Indo-Pacific enduring and flourishing in the decades ahead.”
None of the three countries involved mentioned China in their statements about the alliance, but experts and the Chinese Communist Party saw the pact for what it is.
As director of the Sydney-based Lowy Institute’s international security programme Sam Roggeveen writes, “It is impossible to read this as anything other than a response to China’s rise, and a significant escalation of American commitment to that challenge.”
“The United States has only ever shared this technology with the United Kingdom, so the fact that Australia is now joining this club indicates that the United States is prepared to take significant new steps and break with old norms to meet the China challenge.”
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian concurred, subtly referencing Cold War strategies and saying the trilateral pact was “severely damaging [to] regional peace and stability, intensifying an arms race, and damaging international nuclear non-proliferation efforts.”
Another Chinese spokesperson agreed, saying the three countries need to “shake off their Cold War mentality and ideological prejudice.”
Absent from all of this is Canada, despite being the largest and most loyal descendant of the British Empire and the US’s geographically closest ally.
Many are surely wondering why the three countries — which along with Canada and New Zealand make up the Five Eyes intelligence network and the ‘Anglosphere’ — chose to leave Canada out of the alliance, but some believe PM Justin Trudeau’s open fondness for the Red Dragon may be the cause.
Canada left out again… Do our allies just not trust Trudeau? https://t.co/EoyFAyXenr
— Erin O'Toole (@erinotoole) September 15, 2021
Canada isn’t back, we are on the outside looking in because our allies don’t trust us at the moment. #cdnpoli #elxn44 https://t.co/S33oavCcff
— Brian Lilley (@brianlilley) September 16, 2021
As Toronto Sun’s Brian Lilley suggests, Trudeau’s refusal to crack down on Huawei’s involvement in the Canadian 5G network may be the culprit.
Additionally, it could be that many have reported “large-scale infiltration” by the CCP in Canada’s infrastructure — including in Canadian laboratories, political institutions, businesses, and universities — and Trudeau does not seem to care even moderately.
Either way, we may never know why Canada was excluded from this critical alliance, only that Canada is watching from the sidelines for the moment.
