New cold war
new cold war the AUKUS pact unsettles the world australia, the united Kingdom and the united States have signed a new defence and security pact — auKuS — which has infuriated France and is clearly directed against china, writes by per olsson of rättvisepartiet Socialisterna, our sister organisation in Sweden. The new defence pact “AUKUS” agreed between the USA, Australia and the United Kingdom can, in the words of the British journal The Economist on 17 September, be described as an “agreement that prioritised geopolitics — namely, balancing against China’s rise —over non-proliferation sensitivities”. According to the author, the pact has only one previous comparison: “America’s civil nuclear deal with India in 2005, which came only eight years after India, a Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty holdout, had tested nuclear weapons”. The pact, which was announced on 15 September, is aimed at China and constitutes a risky escalation of an increasingly heated Cold War between the imperialist powers. 4 l SocialiSt alterNative l AuTuMN / WINTEr 2021
Major sea change It’s a huge sea change since 2014 when China’s ruler, Xi Jinping, was met with standing ovations as he spoke in the Australian Parliament. Chinese capitalism was then seen as not only the lifeline of Australia but of other Western states. But the interests of power, political and military ties have proved to be stronger than the economic relations. Since last year, a trade war between China and Australia has been raging, despite the fact that China has been Australia’s largest market since 2007. Power politics, nationalism and militarism are now in the driver’s seat and the focus is on who and which imperialist powers will establish Indo-Pacific hegemony and become the dominant power of the 21st century. What has been geopolitically dubbed the IndoPacific region covers virtually the entire sea area from the east coast of Africa to the Pacific Ocean and India — 44 percent of the earth’s surface and 65 percent of its population. According to the Swedish Institute of International Affairs: “It also accounts for 62 percent of world GDP and 46 percent of all trade in goods.” Above all, AUKUS means a further militarisation of this power struggle. With the help of American and
