Why the world is in for a dangerous decade

The Australia/UK/US (Aukus) deal for Australia to acquire nuclear submarines is the clearest demonstration yet of the UK’s tilt to the Pacific. It gives the UK a relevance there that will last decades. But, as I say in the magazine this week, there are risks as well. The biggest of these comes not from China’s strength, but its weakness.

The Aukus submarines will take years to arrive and the concern is that Beijing tries to get ahead of the new alliances emerging in the Pacific: not only Aukus, but also the ‘Quad’ alliance of the US, India, Japan and Australia. By 2030, the US-led world order will be far better placed to check China. The worry is what happens between now and then.

The influential American strategists Hal Brands and Michael Beckley have pointed out that — like Wilhelmine Germany or Imperial Japan in the 1940s — China might conclude that its rise is slowing, and that, if it doesn’t act now, then its moment of opportunity will have passed.