The Australian foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, has hit back at China’s response to Aukus, insisting that its criticisms of the nuclear-powered submarine deal are “not grounded in fact”.
In an interview with Guardian Australia, Wong also signalled that she planned to make further visits to south-east Asia and the Pacific to reassure the region that Australia does not seek to escalate military tensions.
After the announcement of a multi-decade plan that could cost as much as $368bn between now and the mid-2050s, Wong said no rational observer could conclude Australia was the source of a regional arms race.
She urged China to take up a US offer to agree on “guardrails” to avoid an outbreak of war, despite the concept being derided by Beijing last week. Australia has previously accused China of lacking transparency about its own rapid military buildup.
“Nobody wants to see escalation. Nobody wants to see a miscalculation,” Wong said on Tuesday.
“I think the region is entitled to seek that the great powers manage competition respectfully and appropriately.”
Hours after the Aukus plans were announced by the US, the UK and Australia on Tuesday, China’s foreign ministry repeated its longstanding position that the deal reflected “a typical Cold War mentality” that would stimulate an arms race and “sabotage” the international nuclear non-proliferation system.
China’s mission to the UN also denounced the “irony” that “two nuclear weapons states who claim to uphold the highest nuclear non-proliferation standard are transferring tons of weapons-grade enriched uranium to a non-nuclear-weapon state”.
When asked about that comment, Wong said: “That response is not grounded in fact.”
Wong said Australia had been “very clear” that it would not acquire nuclear weapons. She also said “a number of other countries have” nuclear-powered submarines – and they were allowed under the NPT.
“Australia’s motivation is peace,” she said.
Observers say the Aukus arrangement is novel, because it would be the first time that fissile material and nuclear technology had been transferred from a nuclear weapons state to a non-weapons state.
But the Australian government is believed to disagree with this being characterised as a “loophole”, and it has promised not to enrich uranium or reprocess spent fuel as part of the program.
Wong vowed to continue talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency to put in place “the highest quality arrangement … to ensure this material is managed in a way that is consistent with the NPT”.
The UK and the US say they will provide Australia with nuclear material in “complete, welded nuclear power units that will not require refuelling” during the more than 30-year lifetime of the submarines.
In a fact sheet issued on Tuesday, the Australian government added: “The nuclear fuel Australia receives cannot be used in nuclear weapons without further chemical processing, requiring facilities that Australia does not have and will not seek.”
The government has, however, promised to store the nuclear waste in Australia in a location yet to be decided.
In recent weeks, Australian ministers and officials have paved the way for the Aukus announcement in a series of calls and meetings with counterparts across the Indo-Pacific.
But ambassadors in Canberra are expected to be briefed in detail over the coming days. Australian officials contacted their counterparts in Beijing on Monday to offer a briefing.
Wong said the government had put in place “a comprehensive strategy” leading up to the announcement and made it a priority to re-engage with the Pacific and south-east Asia “in a very focused way”.
The Aukus plan would give Australia “a greater capability of contributing to that strategic equilibrium which is necessary for the sort of region we all want to live in”.
“Certainly it gives Australia a capability that very few countries have and that comes with responsibilities, which we are very aware of,” Wong said, adding that the plans would not undercut diplomatic efforts to reduce tensions.
“Our focus and our attention should be on averting conflict, on keeping the region stable, peaceful and prosperous, and ensuring that sovereignty can be protected.”
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons said the best way to reassure the region would be for Australia to sign and ratify the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
Indonesia – which joined with Malaysia to raise strong concerns about Aukus after it was first announced in 2021 – responded more cautiously on Tuesday.
The Indonesian foreign ministry said it was the responsibility of all countries to maintain peace and stability in the region, and it expected Australia to develop “a verification mechanism that is effective, transparent and non-discriminatory”.
On the eve of the announcement, China’s nationalistic Global Times newspaper quoted Chinese analysts as claiming Australia was “planting a time bomb” and would bear the cost of its “expensive mistake”.
But the incoming Australian ambassador to the US, Kevin Rudd, said last week Aukus should be seen in the context of China’s own push to build the world’s largest navy. China currently operates 56 submarines, of which 12 are nuclear-powered, according to the latest Pentagon assessment.
Australia plans to buy at least three and as many as five Virginia-class submarines from the US in 2030s. The first Australian-built submarines, based on a yet-to-be-completed British design, should enter into service in the 2040s.
