Scott Morrison Lists AUKUS Utility in Countering China's Dominance in Disruptive Technologies

Australia has received furious reactions from some of the ASEAN members after Canberra joined a trilateral group named AUKUS with the US and UK in mid-September. The Morrison government has reassured the apex regional group to calm anxieties about Australia's nuclear submarine programme.

Releasing the government's Critical Technological Blueprint on Wednesday, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said that AUKUS will accelerate the country's future weapons and cyber defence technologies programme.

Morrison said that these technologies are critical to the national interest and promised $111 million in funding to keep strategic rivals from controlling industries ranging from cyber security to medicine.

The prime minister highlighted 63 technologies, but the government will initially focus on supporting nine. The first of these will be quantum technology.

“Australia is working with like-minded countries, liberal democracies in particular, to ensure global technology rules and norms reflect those values – liberal democratic values,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper reported that 63 rapidly developing technologies could be blocked from being shared with Chinese universities and firms as the "federal government looks to stop Beijing from gaining dominance across a range of emerging sectors."

The Prime Minister also underscored that AUKUS will play critical role in achieving the goal mentioned in the strategy document.

"AUKUS will see Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States promote deeper information sharing; foster greater integration of security and defence-related science, technology, industrial bases and supply chains," Morrison said on Wednesday.

Referring to AUKUS as a pact of much more than nuclear submarines, Morrison said that three countries will prepare a working plan by 15 December that will guide them in developing common and complementary security and defence-related science and industrial bases.

The work plan will involve exchanges of information, personnel, and advanced technologies and capabilities; joint planning, capability development and acquisitions, among others.

In mid-September, Australia, the US, and the UK signed a trilateral security arrangement with the agreement promising Canberra nuclear reactor technology to construct nuclear submarines at any Australian shipyard.

Following the announcement, the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) expressed serious concerns, fearing the programme could fuel an arms race in Southeast Asia.

Australian officials have dismissed the criticism, arguing Canberra's nuclear submarines will only be conventionally armed and only help it counter a massive military build-up in the Indo-Pacific region.