Japan and Canada are jostling in line to join the second - non-nuclear - pillar of the trilateral AUKUS security partnership, Politico reported.
President Joe Biden’s administration is “pushing really hard to get some things on AUKUS pillar 2 done now, before the US election” in November, a diplomat was cited as saying. There are reportedly mounting fears that if ex-President Donald Trump retakes the White House, he might opt to either wind back or scrap the AUKUS deal. It should be noted that Trump is yet to offer any public comment, disparaging or otherwise, about AUKUS, but critics reportedly fear his America First rhetoric might derail the pact.
A Trump-inspired return of “American isolationism is a risk to the Indo-Pacific,” another diplomat was quoted as saying.
“If pillar 2 fails then AUKUS fails, because we could have just had a submarine deal — albeit a very big submarine deal,” the source said, adding, “We’re very confident of getting some of the pillar 2 deals done by the end of this year.”
There was "impetus to get pillar 2 done sooner rather than later", and there are "ongoing discussions around what pillar 2 will look like," a UK Ministry of Defense official was cited as saying, adding:
“We continue to seek opportunities to engage allies and close partners as work on AUKUS Pillar 2 progresses. Any decisions on bringing other states into specific projects within AUKUS’ Advanced Capability work would be made trilaterally and announced at an appropriate time.”
It was "always envisioned" that pillar two could be expanded to embrace US allies, the report stated, with Japan, Canada, New Zealand, and South Korea among those interested in joining.
"The president and his partners have been clear that as our work progresses on pillar 2 we would look for opportunities to engage other allies and close partners," a White House official was cited as telling the publication.
However, the report stressed that no decisions on Japan and South Korea joining the pact have been made. New Zealand's Defense Minister Judith Collins stated on February 29:
“It is quite early days for Pillar II for the AUKUS partners, let alone anyone else like us or the Canadians... We have started that engagement, we want to keep this up and understand further the opportunities for New Zealand.”
Last May, Canada’s then-Defense Minister Anita Anand told reporters that the country was “highly interested in furthering cooperation on AI, quantum computing and other advanced technologies with a defense nexus with our closest allies.”
Further details pertaining to AUKUS were unveiled on March 14, 2023. Under the three-phase deal, Australia is expected to buy at least three Virginia-class nuclear-powered attack submarines, with the option to acquire two more in the early 2030s. Prior to that, Canberra would host the "rotational forces" of US and UK underwater craft from 2027. In December 2023, the US Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act which allowed the transfer of the Virginia-class submarines to Australia.
The second pillar of the AUKUS trilateral security agreement involves the sharing of a range of technologies, including underwater robotics, quantum electronics, cybersecurity and electronic warfare capabilities, hypersonic weapons, and defense mechanisms against them.
In February, reports surfaced in Australian media that Canberra and Wellington were mulling over New Zealand's possible participation in the second pillar of the AUKUS partnership. Canberra at the time pledged to send a working group to New Zealand in 2024 to brief the government on the development of the second pillar of AUKUS, the RNZ broadcaster reported.
A subsequent report in March said that the US had launched talks with the UK and Australia on inviting Japan to the partnership. Tokyo's involvement would be limited to specific projects, excluding those under the first pillar of the trilateral agreement, the Nikkei business daily reported.
Incidentally, a June 2023 assessment update released by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) suggested that China is ahead of the US and its allies in 19 of the 23 technologies relevant to AUKUS pillar two.
“China has become a serious competitor in the foundational technologies of the 21st century: artificial intelligence (AI), 5G, quantum information science (QIS), semiconductors, biotechnology, and green energy,” it was stated.
As soon as the AUKUS deal was revealed, Russia voiced its concerns about the pact, saying that the partnership would have a destabilizing effect on the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and undermine international security in general.
While the NPT does not prevent non-nuclear weapon states from building nuclear-powered vessels, the IAEA will not be able to verify exactly what Canberra is doing with nuclear materials, due to the fact that the exact location of Australian-operated nuclear submarines would be kept secret.
China slammed AUKUS, adding that by agreeing to it, Australia, the US, and UK had demonstrated a "Cold War mentality." AUKUS could turn the Pacific into "an ocean of storms," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin warned on June 6, 2023.