It needs to be recalled that last year Australia, United Kingdom and the United States of America had unveiled a program of nuclear submarine cooperation amongst themselves called AUKUS.

Many countries around the globe, including China, were alarmed by risks that AUKUS created for the NPT regime, world peace and stability and for the functioning of IAEA. Consequently, China had proposed that AUKUS should be subjected to a thorough examination of the IAEA Board of Governors so that its dangerous aspects could be neutralized.

To this end, China had proposed the inscription of an item on the agenda of the Board of Governors called "Transfer of nuclear materials in the context of AUKUS and its safeguards in all aspects under the NPT". This item was duly inscribed by consensus and has been reiterated four times, equally also by consensus.

Despite the existence of this fully consensually agreed agenda item, US, UK and Australia have, at the current session of the Board, pushed through a parallel item on the trilateral nuclear submarine cooperation very much to the detriment of the non-proliferation functions and authority of the Agency.

One can only surmise that the object of this duplication is to muddy the waters and create maximum confusion.

In response to the damage done by the three countries though AUKUS to Agency functions and to the international nuclear non-proliferation regime, the spokesperson of the Chinese Permanent Mission in Vienna said gave the following talk:

At this Board of Governors meeting, despite the existence of a relevant agenda item on the AUKUS nuclear submarine cooperation which had been three times adopted by the Board by consensus as well as the intergovernmental process which this item had launched, the three countries have pushed through a parallel item on the same issue while simultaneously they publicly threatened to block the subsequent discussion process through a procedural fight using their small group and taking advantage of flaws in the composition of the board. This conduct of theirs is not just fraught with pride and prejudice but shows very clearly demonstrates their utmost contempt for multilateralism.

If the three countries are allowed to "pretend" that their nuclear submarine cooperation to the Agency is compliant and they are allowed to turn the Secretariat into a "Trojan horse" in order to "whitewash" their nuclear proliferation acts and legitimize their otherwise illegal nuclear submarine cooperation, it will seriously undermine the common interests of the international community, including the Agency Secretariat and all its Member States.

The conduct of the three countries under AUKUS is a brazen act of political maneuvering, aimed at coercing the Secretariat into proposing a safeguards arrangement that legitimizes and gives legal cover to their nuclear submarine cooperation and push it through by relying on their voting advantage at the Board. This would embroil the Secretariat in the nuclear proliferation acts of the three countries and in activities that further military purposes. Should such attempts prevail, the Agency would be reduced to a "nuclear proliferation agency” in violation of the objectives set out in the Statute.

China hopes that the Agency will remain neutral and act in accordance with the Statute and mandates from its Member States. At the same time, China calls on all IAEA Members to continue participating in discussions under the Chinese proposed item, including on the Director-General’s reports, further advance the intergovernmental process reached four times by consensus at the Bboard of Governors' meetings, focus on the true nature of the trilateral nuclear submarine cooperation, find a solution and meaningfully defend the NPT and preserve the international nuclear non-proliferation system.