In the view of a vast majority of states of the international community, including China, the AUKUS nuclear submarine cooperation, announced a year ago by Australia, United Kingdom and the United States of America, has set a dangerous precedent in nuclear proliferation. It goes beyond the existing safeguards system, poses global risks and impacts adversely on the functioning of the IAEA. In order to contain its inherently dangerous hazards and to find a universally acceptable solution, the problem must, therefore, be addressed by all IAEA Members.
Lately, the three countries publicly claimed that they would arrive at arrangements with the Agency Secretariat for a relevant safeguards approach.
In response to this outrageous behavior of the three countries in coercing the Agency Secretariat into serving the interests of a small group of countries, the spokesperson of the Chinese Permanent Mission in Vienna gave the following opinion:
The AUKUS nuclear submarine cooperation is a blatant, direct and illegal transfer, for the first time in history, of nuclear weapon material from NWSs to an NNW. It is a nuclear proliferation issue that concerns each and every state on this planet. It goes far beyond the existing mandates of the Agency Secretariat. It is, therefore, absurd to think that it is not an issue which can be settled bilaterally between the three countries and the Agency Secretariat to the exclusion of the international community.
The AUKUS nuclear submarine cooperation violates the NPT, the CSA and the AP. It is a sheer act of nuclear proliferation with several enormous negative impacts and the three countries should thus stop this cooperation without delay.
If the three countries refuse to do so, all Member States of the Agency have the responsibility and obligation to tell them what to do by working out, through the intergovernmental consultation process, an agreed formula to address this issue, and submit a report with recommendations to the Agency’s Board of Governors and the General Conference accordingly.
As an intergovernmental international organization, the Agency’s functions in developing and implementing safeguards measures are explicitly set out in Article III of the Statute. Therefore, any substantive issues involving safeguards implementation must be decided by Members of IAEA through consultations in accordance with established procedures. Under Article VII of the Statute, the Director-General shall be under the authority of and subject to the control of the Board of Governors. Thus on the issue of safeguards as on many other matters, it is explicit that the Members of IAEA have the final say.
Under the current circumstances, the trilateral nuclear submarine cooperation issue should be discussed in the intergovernmental process proposed by China to find a solution. Pending consensus among Agency Members on such a solution, the three countries should refrain from pushing ahead their nuclear submarine cooperation programmes, nor should the Agency’s Secretariat, for its part, proceed further in its engagement with the three countries on any safeguards arrangement relating to the AUKUS nuclear submarine cooperation, especially as there is an absence of due mandate from Member States.