Australia paying high price for sub deal

In an interview with Sky News Australia on Sunday, when asked whether the outcome of the 2024 presidential election of the United States will affect the AUKUS agreement, and whether that will create uncertainties for Australia buying US nuclear submarines, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese made clear Australia has concerns.

Despite Albanese's negative replies to both questions, it is obvious that Canberra worries that Australia might be left high and dry should a new US leader be forthcoming after the election who annuls the AUKUS agreement.

Such concerns about whether the US will honor the spirit of contract are actually common to almost all the US' allies, including such seemingly faithful pawns as Japan and the United Kingdom, given the US' track record.

Thanks to the restraint Beijing has exercised toward the US' provocations and containment efforts, the communication channels between China and the US have been kept open, and more importantly the world's two largest economies have witnessed a fast increase in their bilateral trade in spite of Washington's attempts to decouple their economies from each other, that means the conditions for the rebound of Sino-US relations are always there.

But some of the US' allies, such as Australia and Canada, have seen their trade with China decline dramatically in recent years after they jumped onto Washington's anti-China bandwagon.

That it will take more than two decades for Australia to obtain all of the eight nuclear submarines in the deal, with China as their imaginary enemy, provided by the US and the UK, gives the Australian side enough reasons to worry about what might happen to the deal if Sino-US relations take a turn for the better over that period of time. If so, not only will the deal, which will cost Australia up to $245 billion, prove a waste of money, but more importantly it will firmly chain Australia to the US' geopolitical planning as it allows the US military to penetrate into the Australian military and some civil sectors to unprecedented degrees.

Australia's future reliance on the US for technology assistance and maintenance of the submarines, which are unnecessary for Australia given the South Pacific's peace and stability, means it will irreversibly be a player in the US' games, turning an otherwise peaceful continent far from the center of world geopolitical struggles into a potential target of any foes of the US.