Can Aukus help counter the threat from China?

Aukus is a pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. But its primary purpose is combatting another country: China.

‘It’s about China, let’s be quite clear,’ says security minister Tom Tugendhat. ‘You will not see many direct references to China in Aukus literature,’ says Sophia Gaston, director of the British Foreign Policy Group, ‘but it is certainly implicit. China is looming in the background; a spectre’.

For Australia, it’s vital that the Aukus pact succeeds in the face of the growing threat from Beijing

That spectre was the focus of a fringe event at Tory party conference, discussing whether Aukus can shift the balance in the Pacific. Tugendhat is optimistic it can. One of the headline announcements of the Aukus pact – the development of nuclear-powered submarines – remains some time away. But the agreement, announced last September, is already bearing fruit: deeper co-operation between the three countries’ navies is already evident, says Tugendhat.