Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Marise Payne and Minister for Defence Peter Dutton met with British Foreign Secretary Elizabeth Truss and Secretary of State for Defence Ben Wallace in Sydney on Friday for the annual Australia-United Kingdom Ministerial Consultations (AUKMIN). This is the first time that senior diplomats from the two countries met after announcing the AUKUS partnership in September last year.
📢 BREAKING NEWS: @trussliz speaks at #AUKMIN2022 press conference.
— UK in Australia 🇬🇧🇦🇺 (@ukinaustralia) January 21, 2022
"#Australia is a crucial ally and friend”.
Highlights discussions between 🇬🇧🇦🇺 on:
💰 Strengthening our economic interdependency
💡 Boosting our cooperation on technology
🔐 Deepening security ties pic.twitter.com/xMsZru0TlH
AUKUS is a trilateral military partnership between the UK, Australia and the United States (US), which allows Australia to build a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines with the technology shared by its partners to counter China’s military presence and growing influence across the Indo-Pacific region.
While speaking to reporters in Sydney, Dutton said, “AUKUS represents an enormous opportunity for us, not just in relation to the acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines but also, rightly, as Marise [Payne] points out, other capabilities which will deter acts of aggression.” Both sides are expected to discuss Australia’s submarine programme during Friday’s talks.
Ahead of the consultations with his British counterparts, Dutton said Australia and Britain would fight back against cyberattacks from Iran, China and Russia. He added that cybersecurity would dominate talks between both countries.
Ahead of the talks, Payne signed an agreement with Truss, under which Australia and Britain would coordinate cyber sanctions regimes to increase deterrence. “Australia is committed to working with partners such as the UK to challenge malign actors who use technology to undermine freedom and democracy,” Payne said in a statement.
Today 🇦🇺 & 🇬🇧 have discussed ways to meet the range of global challenges by working even more closely together. As liberal democracies we are natural partners in countering influence of authoritarianism, standing up for human rights & maintaining rules-based order. #AUKMIN pic.twitter.com/rQbPxI5SGA
— Marise Payne (@MarisePayne) January 21, 2022
Apart from cybersecurity, an agreement was also signed for joint investment in the Indo-Pacific region. “The UK is committed to building a ‘network of liberty’ and that means championing democracy by supporting countries in the Indo-Pacific to resolve their development needs,” Truss said.
Likewise, in an interview with The Australian prior to the talks, Truss hailed the new security agreement and expressed hope for closer industrial collaboration. “It is also about much closer technological collaboration because this is where a lot of the battle for the future will be fought,” she said, adding, “It won’t just be fought in traditional defence. It will be in cyberspace, the use of quantum technology and of artificial intelligence. These are the areas where we do want AUKUS to go very deep.”
Similarly, Secretary Wallace said, “The UK and Australia share one of the oldest and strongest defence and security alliances,” adding, “Operating and exercising side-by-side, we continue to work together to promote stability and tackle our shared threats with our like-minded ally head-on.”
Both Australia and the UK have had tumultuous diplomatic relations with China. Both countries have called out the latter for military advances towards Taiwan, erosion of democracy in Hong Kong and human rights abuses in Xinjiang. Furthermore, the two allies have also joined the diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, initiated by the US, over China’s treatment of the Uyghur minorities in the Xinjiang province.