“If China had succeeded, it would have been a disaster for us”, one official said.īrazil also saw the Chinese move as an attempt to weaken the position of IAEA director general Rafael Grossi, an Argentine whom Brasilia holds in high regard. Instead, on the last day of the General Conference, China seems to have withdrawn its draft resolution.īrazilian officials told The Wire that the Chinese move, though aimed at Australia, would have gone against Brazil’s plans to develop nuclear-powered submarines as well. However, there were no other reports that confirmed the Global Times article. The information was attributed to China’s permanent mission to the UN in Vienna. On September 28, China’s state-run tabloid Global Times reported that the nuclear submarine deal would be officially reviewed at the General Conference after “IAEA members expressed great concern over the potential danger of nuclear proliferation”. By calling for more oversight, China hoped to either stop Australia from getting the nuclear submarines or, at least, make the process more difficult. China lashed out against the report, claiming that the IAEA director general “ cannot be reduced to a political tool of the three countries and be used to make misleading conclusions”.Īt the IAEA’s annual General Conference that began on September 26, China had ramped up its efforts to prevent AUKUS from going forward by circulating a draft resolution. The IAEA had also issued a report that it was “satisfied” with the cooperation from the US, Australia and the UK in monitoring the nuclear material. Since last year, the AUKUS initiative has been a stand-alone item on the agenda of the quarterly meetings of IAEA’s 35-member Board of Governors.Īt the last meeting of the Board of Governors earlier this month, China clashed with the AUKUS alliance. While the NPT bans non-nuclear weapon states from possessing nuclear weapons, nuclear propulsion for conventionally armed submarines is not proscribed. India has acquired two nuclear submarines but has never been party to NPT on the grounds that it is discriminatory. Though Brazil is working with France on developing nuclear submarines too and has been in talks with the IAEA over safeguards and procedures, this would be the first time a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty, besides the five recognised nuclear weapon states, would possess and operate nuclear submarines. With Washington drawing up the proposal explicitly to counter China in Asia, Beijing has been highly critical of the plan to equip Australia with nuclear submarines fuelled with highly-enriched uranium. In September 2021, the US, the UK and Australia announced the formation of the AUKUS alliance to allow Canberra to acquire at least eight nuclear submarines. “Watch your tongue, gentlemen! And don’t forget that in human history, economic wars quite often turned into real ones.New Delhi: India, Brazil and other countries lobbied against a Chinese-sponsored draft resolution in the UN’s atomic energy watchdog, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which would have put a roadblock on the planned supply of nuclear submarines to Australia. “Today, some French minister has said that they declared an economic war on Russia,” Medvedev, who served as Russia’s placeholder president in 2008-2012 when Putin had to shift into the prime minister’s post because of term limits. The latest statements from Putin and other Russian officials indicated the Kremlin view of Western sanctions as a threat on par with military aggression.ĭmitry Medvedev, a deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, responded Tuesday to French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire commenting that the European Union would unleash an all-out economic and financial “war” against Russia. In announcing his decision, Putin cited “aggressive statements” from NATO powers and new, crippling Western sanctions that froze Russia’s hard currency reserves, an unprecedented move that threatened to have devastating consequences for the its economy and finances. Putin’s order heightened already soaring tensions, drawing comparisons to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis that saw Moscow and Washington teetering on the brink of a nuclear conflict.
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