Wang Qun, China’s permanent representative to international organisations in Vienna, said the establishment of the AUKUS alliance between the US, Britain and Australia constituted an “act of nuclear proliferation”
“Wang Qun stressed that openly assisting the US and Britain as nuclear powers to countries without nuclear weapons, such as Australia, to acquire nuclear-powered military submarines constituted a blatant act of nuclear proliferation”, – Wang Qun said in a statement.
In his view, the establishment of AUKUS will adversely affect the world’s efforts on the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula. In addition, the Chinese ambassador stressed that the goals of the new alliance were in contradiction with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
Earlier it became known that the US, the UK and Australia had formed a new alliance on 15 September. Its main goal is to equip Australia with nuclear submarines, due to which the Australian authorities terminated a submarine supply contract with France. Paris criticised the decision and retaliated by cancelling celebrations in the US to mark the 250th anniversary of the Battle of the Chesapeake.