The Australian government announced Monday the construction of a new submarine base on the country’s east coast to counter threats in the Indo-Pacific region, following a controversial pact that allowed it to build American nuclear submarine technology.

“Threats from state and non-state actors are proliferating in our region. Militarization is booming and growing,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison said at a Lowy Institute event.

The Australian president has explicitly cited the expansion of China, Australia’s key trading partner but with whom he maintains strong diplomatic tensions, by claiming nearly all of the islands and atolls in the South China Sea, a major maritime trade route and rich in natural resources. .

“There is no doubt that China is more assertive and uses its power in ways that cause concern for countries in the region and beyond,” Morrison added, referring to Beijing’s conflicting territorial claims with Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and Taiwan.

Australia, which in September signed defense agreements with the United States and Britain providing access to the construction of nuclear submarines using US technology, will invest about A$10 billion (US$7.392 million) in its new base.

Likewise, Morrison warned that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which China did not denounce, “is a reminder that, even though Australia is focused on the Indo-Pacific, events in other parts of the planet will have an impact on the region.” region.

The new base, in principle, will serve to house the aforementioned new nuclear submarines whose pact, called AUKUS by the acronym of the countries that compose it, created problems with France by breaching a contract sealed in 2016 for the acquisition of submarines from the company. Navy Group gala.

Australia, a country that is also part of a quadrilateral security pact called QUAD with the United States, Japan and India to maintain the rule of law, currently has a base for six Collins submarines in the southwestern city of Perth.

Canberra has not announced where the new base will be located, the first major construction since the Darwin barracks was built in the 1990s, though Morrison said they were studying three sites between the cities of Brisbane, Port Kembla and Newcastle, the latter two near Sydney.

gs (efe, The Sydney Morning Herald)