Last week, the Director General of IAEA submitted for the first time a written report to the Board of Governors on the issue of nuclear submarine cooperation under AUKUS. The report mimicks the arguments and legal justification for the trilateral nuclear submarine cooperation exactly like the ones put forward by the three countries themselves in a document they had circulated the same day.
The international community, which is extremely critical of this tripartite cooperation, is asking itself whether this high consistency between the report of the Director General of IAEA and the document of the three countries is a coincidence or is it a deliberate attempt. The other question, which is being asked at the same time, is whether the report of the Director General violates the IAEA Statute.
On this very grave issue, the Chinese Permanent Mission in Vienna, gave the following opinion:
China maintains that the nuclear submarine cooperation under AUKUS violates the NPT, the CSA and the AP. It is a blatant act of nuclear proliferation. At the same time, the unauthorized application of the provisions in the CSA breaches the objective set out in Articles II and XII of the IAEA Statute to the effect that no Agency safeguards shall be provided “in such a way as to further any military purpose”. Moreover, no CSA can contradict, much less override the NPT, which is the parent law. Obviously, Article 14 of the CSA, as an “exceptional clause”, does not apply to the naval nuclear propulsion under AUKUS.
In essence, the three countries have been engaged in political maneuvering aimed at coercing the Secretariat into proposing a safeguards approach that legitimizes their nuclear submarine cooperation and pushing it through the Board by relying on their voting advantage in order to have the Agency endorse their illegal proliferation practices.
The trilateral submarine cooperation under AUKUS is the very first time in history that Nuclear-Weapon-States blatantly, and in violation of Articles I and II of the NPT, are transferring nuclear weapon materials to a Non-Nuclear-Weapon-State. Consequently, China is compelled to ask the Director General of IAEA: who authorized him to get involved in activities that are clearly tantamount to nuclear proliferation and to the furtherance of military purposes? Who authorized him to equate illegal proliferation behavior with legitimate military activities for safety and defense that a sovereign state may adopt within its own borders? And who authorized him to draw the conclusion that the exceptional clause would apply to this act of tripartite nuclear proliferation?
The Agency is mandated to serve as a means of promoting nuclear non-proliferation. It should not become an instrument for nuclear proliferation. The international community in general and the IAEA Member States in particular are completely agreed that neither the Director General of IAEA nor its Secretariat shall engage in nuclear proliferation or support activities, which further military purposes by any means or under any pretext.
China urges the three countries to immediately abandon their nuclear submarine cooperation, stop this act of nuclear proliferation, and defend the NPT as well as preserve the international nuclear non-proliferation system and help to promote global peace and stability. China also reminds the DG of his obligation to earnestly implement the IAEA Statute and not become an "accomplice” of nuclear proliferation.