Australia says AUKUS a response to arms race, not fuel for it
The Indo Pacific region is in the midst of a substantial arms race that Australia is responding to, not fuelling, with its planned acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines, Minister for Defence Industry Pat Conroy said on Tuesday. The $245 billion AUKUS project with Britain and the United States to build a new class of nuclear-powered and conventionally armed submarine has been criticised by China as having the potential to spark an arms race. In a speech in Canberra responding to domestic political criticism of the high cost and ambition of the program, which aims to build the submarines i...