អាមេរិកនៅក្រៅអឺរ៉ុបក្នុងការប្រយុទ្ធដើម្បីបញ្ឈប់មហិច្ឆតារបស់ចិន

AUKUS underscores EU's global weakness even as it tries to expand influence in Asia

The new AUKUS security alliance of three English-speaking nations signals a deeper U.S. shift away from Europe in its attempts to stem China's global ambitions.

The abrupt announcement of the pact between the U.S., the U.K. and Australia, which provides Canberra with American and British technology to build nuclear-powered submarines, has stunned many European Union and NATO member states.

France, in particular, is livid. Having lost a multibillion-dollar submarine deal with Australia, Paris called the move a "stab in the back" and recalled its ambassadors to Washington and Canberra.

French President Emmanuel Macron and U.S. President Joe Biden spoke on the phone last week in an attempt to heal the rift, and Paris vowed to return its ambassador as a gesture to restore "confidence." But the AUKUS move has scarred the European Union, underscoring its geopolitical weakness and putting the 27-nation bloc at risk of being marginalized in the broader U.S.-China global power game.

"The U.S. loss of interest for Europe is not a new phenomenon," Frederic Grare, a senior policy fellow at the Asia Program at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told Nikkei Asia. "If Trump will be remembered for his explicit contempt for the EU, disinterest predated his election. ... The rivalry with China is now America's first concern, and Washington acts accordingly. It should surprise no one."

After four years of former U.S. President Donald Trump's "America First" approach, which often led to decisions that blindsided European countries, Biden's "America's Back" seemed like a breath of fresh air. Just a few months ago, Secretary of State Antony Blinken cracked jokes in French in Paris and spoke about revitalizing the trans-Atlantic relationship.

But this hope for closer U.S.-Europe ties was quickly shattered by the chaotic U.S. pullout from Afghanistan, which was poorly coordinated with NATO. And the AUKUS pact has brought home the reality in European capitals that EU nations are not partners of choice for Washington for specific deals.

Charles Michel, the president of the European Council, said AUKUS shows Biden lacks confidence in Europe. Under Trump, he added, "at least in tone, content and wording, it was clear that the EU was not a partner, not an irreplaceable ally."

For some American decision-makers, dealing with a collective -- and often confusing -- entity like the EU is time-consuming, and they may feel more at ease with the U.K. and Australia.

Many EU member states have close trade relations with China and will not easily sacrifice their economic interests for the sake of the U.S. -- especially now they feel they have been stabbed in the back. France, Germany, Italy and Spain have repeatedly rejected Biden's calls for an alliance against Beijing.

Last week, Josep Borrell, the EU's high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, said the bloc's plan is for "cooperation, not confrontation" with China.

Plamen Tonchev, head of the Asia unit at the Athens-based Institute of International Economic Relations, told Nikkei Asia, "It is true that the 27 EU member states have 27 different views on China."

The 2019 Strategic Outlook released by the European Commission and the European External Action Service came up with a complex definition of China as a "partner, competitor and rival, Tonchev said. "When the U.S. sees China primarily as a rival, the EU has a bit more relaxed attitude. Even if the mood is changing, Europe is not yet ready to adopt Washington's confrontational stance towards China."

Treading a path between the U.S. and China is not an end in itself. In many areas, European and American interests are the same, and the two sides can benefit from the mutual leverage this brings, analysts say.

"Views differ within the bloc, but everyone agrees on some difficult policy areas, such as sanctioning Chinese officials for their repressive practices in Xinjiang," Andrew Small, a senior trans-Atlantic fellow with the Asia program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, told Nikkei Asia. "Likewise, there is a consensus to overhaul the EU's economic instruments to take on the challenge of Chinese nonmarket practices."

A day after the announcement of the AUKUS submarine deal, the EU unveiled its Indo-Pacific Strategy paper, a document defining Brussels' attempts to expand its influence in Asia. But this new strategy is unlikely to significantly boost the EU's influence in the region, which is of relatively new interest for the bloc.

"In practical terms, a few European states (including the U.K.) are ready and willing to project military power in the region," Tonchev said. "The EU approach to 'connectivity' with the Indo-Pacific is softer, based on economic relations and cooperation, even if security is becoming a priority for the EU."

But, he added, "The idea of a collective EU military response to what's happening in, say, the South China Sea would be outlandish at this stage."

Grare said the AUKUS message delivered by the U.S. is contradictory. "On the one hand, they had been telling the EU to do more in Asia, but on the other hand, they were threatening to marginalize Europe when they made a step forward.

"It may leave the EU indecisive about what their posture should be in Asia, and also uncertain of what it means to be a U.S. ally," he added.

The Indo-Pacific concept is still new for Europe, but European interests in South Asia, the western Indian Ocean and East Asia are long-standing. France, for instance, considers the region of crucial strategic and economic importance, with 1.65 million French citizens on islands including La Reunion, New Caledonia, Mayotte and French Polynesia.

Most European states continue to rely on the U.S. to guarantee security and see this as a more solid commitment than they could expect from their fellow Europeans. But the AUKUS snub was felt across the continent, and leaders are saying that Europe must start to think differently about defense and stand up for its interests.

"Certainly, the EU should have more capacity to influence the outcomes in the Indo-Pacific, which is critical to European interests in the decades ahead," Small said. "But realistically, there are limitations to the military role that Europe can play. So a lot of Europe's capacity to project will be geoeconomic."

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen used her annual state of the union speech to appeal for greater strategic autonomy for the bloc. While this has been backed by France for years, other member states, as well as some leading EU officials, have pushed against this stance.

"The call for strategic autonomy was never a call for strategic autarky but, rather, a call for greater initiative and involvement of the EU in the world strategic affairs," Grare said.

One potential example of such self-reliance was a defense agreement signed Tuesday between France and Greece.

Macron said the deal that foresees the purchase by Greece of three French-built frigates, with the option of a fourth, was "an audacious first step towards European strategic autonomy."

Australia 'crosses the Rubicon' with nuclear submarine accord

AUKUS deal reverberates among Asian nations coping with China-US row

Australia, the U.K. and U.S. have concluded a naval deal in a manner more secret than the interior of any nuclear submarine.

Through the AUKUS security pact, announced on Sept. 15, closely guarded nuclear submarine technology will be transferred to Australia, which will gird its defenses with at least eight of the vessels.

Through the AUKUS security pact, announced on Sept. 15, closely guarded nuclear submarine technology will be transferred to Australia, which will gird its defenses with at least eight of the vessels.

Left entirely in the dark, France was enraged because the deal involves the unilateral cancellation of a 2016 contract it concluded with Australia for diesel-powered submarines. As a result, Paris recalled its ambassadors to Washington and Canberra.

Secret AUKUS negotiations began 18 months ago but really picked up steam in March and April, according to the Guardian Australia newspaper. The initial talks were between Australia and the U.K. The U.S. came aboard later. At the G-7 summit in the U.K. in June, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who was attending as a guest, met U.S. President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. The three men forged a new outline for a security cooperation agreement.

At the end of August -- before the AUKUS announcement -- Biden pulled all American troops out of Afghanistan, which is now back under Taliban rule after the U.S. military's 20-year failure to subdue and democratize the South Asian country.

Biden said the U.S. would shift its security focus to the Indo-Pacific region to check China, but there was concern among some Asian nations that the U.S. might yet pull the rug out from under them in pursuing its own national interests.

France's outrage is not surprising, but why did Australia, the U.K. and the U.S. forge this alliance with so little obvious groundwork?

On Sept. 24, the leaders of Australia, India, Japan and the U.S. staged their first Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD) meeting. Biden evidently wanted to give credence to the U.S.'s declared intention of remaining a force in Asia -- and even deepening its regional involvement -- ahead of the summit.

AUKUS reflects some major geopolitical policy shifts. The U.S. has shown clearly that it attaches greater importance to its ties with Australia than to France. Backing Australia against a possible China threat takes precedence, it seems, over backing Europe against less likely Russian contingencies.

Just as importantly, Australia has unequivocally thrown its lot in with the U.S. after the souring of its once warm relations with China.

The relationship between Washington and Canberra is based on the 1951 Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty. The ANZUS Treaty tied Australia and New Zealand and separately Australia and the U.S. on military matters in the Pacific. It is still in play between Australia and the U.S., but New Zealand fell away long ago. Having adopted a non-nuclear policy, Wellington in 1986 refused a port call by a U.S. nuclear submarine, and Washington said it was no longer obligated to protect New Zealand.

In 1999, when Australian troops deployed to East Timor, Prime Minister John Howard said his country would act as "deputy sheriff" to the U.S. in the region. Some dubbed his comments, which ruffled feathers in Asia, as "the Howard Doctrine," even though Australian troops fought in Korea and Vietnam, and subsequently in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Relations with France, by comparison, were not helped by its refusal in 2003 to send troops to Iraq to join the U.S.-led "coalition of the willing."

Australia's location in the Southern Hemisphere gives it less immediacy than other U.S. allies in Asia -- Japan, the Philippines, South Korea and Thailand. Greater U.S. focus on these more northerly territories was to be expected.

China's "peaceful emergence" in the decades after Chairman Mao died in 1976 stimulated economic relations between Australia and China, particularly after Beijing's accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001. In 2005, the value of Australia's trade with China surpassed that with the U.S. and had quadrupled at its relatively recent peak.

Australia in 2015 concluded a free trade agreement with China and invested in the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

After the U.S. ceased to be Australia's biggest partner in terms of trade, China's ascent served as a wedge in that relationship. Australia in 2008 broke away from the QUAD predecessor and also withdrew from the annual Malabar joint naval exercises with India, Japan and the U.S.

Australia's relations with the U.S. were seriously tested in January 2017 when President Donald Trump fulfilled a campaign pledge upon entering office to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a multilateral trade pact. After Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull voiced expectations that China would fill the gap, a later telephone conversation about refugees turned very sour, and Trump hung up.

Australia's relationship with China would go south for other reasons. In November 2017, a prominent opposition politician was exposed for receiving huge political donations from a Chinese company to make pro-China remarks on the South China Sea issue. There was immense public resentment of China for flagrantly interfering in Australia's internal affairs, and the government barred Chinese technology companies like Huawei Technologies and ZTE from receiving contracts for 5G cellular infrastructure.

The final nail in the coffin came in April 2020 when Prime Minister Scott Morrison pressed for an independent inquiry into the origins of COVID-19. China fired back with import restrictions on Australian products. Undeterred, Australia called out Beijing for its abuses of human rights in Hong Kong and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

Although Australia had always assumed itself to be beyond Chinese missile range, hardware developments and an increase in military infrastructure being deployed by China on artificial islets in the South China Sea have challenged this conceit.

Even without the risk of a direct attack, Australia's remoteness could make it vulnerable to expanded Chinese naval power. The Global Times, the English-language mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, wrote in a commentary that the "nuke sub deal could make Australia a 'potential nuclear war target'" -- regardless of what nuclear status Australia claims.

The U.S. has more than 30 allies. The list includes Japan, South Korea and the member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Yet Australia will be only the second country after the U.K. to get access to U.S. nuclear submarine technology. It will also be the first non-nuclear country to have atomic submarines.

Australia may have decided to take this major step -- crossing the Rubicon, so to speak -- because it does not expect to reconcile with an increasingly belligerent China.

Others in Asia, including members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, have looked to the U.S. for security and to China for economic development. A country like Singapore cannot choose either the U.S. or China, according to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Middle powers will need to find a neutral path between the dueling superpowers.

Some observers would have said the decline of the U.S. and rise of China are part of an unavoidable historical process, but Australia has thrown its lot back in with the U.S. That decision is a long-term bet that the alliance will endure, and on the likelihood that the U.S. has the resolve to stay in Asia, according to Sam Roggeveen, director of the International Security Program at Australia's Lowy Institute for International Policy.

Biden has described the China-U.S. standoff as democracy vs. autocracy. Australia's decision may be translated as betting on the sustainability of prosperity under the former.

Although Asian countries assume different postures toward undemocratic nations, the chances that they will be asked to choose between the U.S. and China appear likely to increase in light of China's supersensitive reactions to recent developments.