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On September 15, the leaders of the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom announced through a web conference that Australia will interrupt the 2016 contract with France to purchase 12 traditionally powered attack submarines worth 56 billion euros, and instead plan to purchase the United States and the United Kingdom. Britain has 8 strategic submarines with nuclear drive technology. At the same time, the three parties will carry out strategic cooperation in the Indo-Pacific security called Aukus.
Diplomatic crisis
As soon as the news came out, it caused great repercussions in France. First, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of Defense issued a joint statement at night, stating that Australia had betrayed the spirit of mutual trust that France and Australia had upheld for a long time, “in the Indo-Pacific region. The values we believe in and the time when pluralism is facing severe challenges”, this move has left such an “ally of France out of the picture”, which is deeply regrettable. The Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Yves Le Drian even called him “very angry” in an interview on French radio station France Info at 8 a.m., feeling like “stabbed in the back”, “This is Australia’s against France. A major betrayal of trust”. And the United States treats its allies in such a “unilateral, rude, and lack of pre-communication” approach, much like Trump’s approach. He also said, “France wants all parties to give a reasonable explanation.” Subsequently, France recalled the ambassador’s consultation for the first time in the history of the United States and France. On the evening of September 18, Derian went to French TV primetime news for an interview. His words were fierce. He called the incident unacceptable based on the initial reaction of the US and Australia. Contempt” has undermined the due “trust” among allies and caused a serious “diplomatic crisis”. It refuted the statement that Australia had communicated in advance, saying that it was “not notified until one hour before the announcement”.
So far we are not clear on whether the situation is as it said, but from the extent of the French side’s anger, and several weak statements in the US diplomatic and defense system, including the news that Biden proposed a call with Macron later, the United Kingdom According to Prime Minister Johnson’s so-called “unswerving love and loyalty” from the United Kingdom to France on the plane to the United States, and the reluctant explanation of the Australian Prime Minister, it is still very likely that the three parties suddenly took action to keep France in the dark. big. Otherwise, this will involve major events in many countries, and there will be no information disclosed in advance. It is reported that the negotiations between the United States, Australia and Britain were conducted in a very secret manner by the three parties, and even the heads of some departments in their respective governments were not aware of it in advance. For example, two weeks ago, the relevant ministers of Australia and France were still discussing a series of bilateral issues, including the delivery date of the submarine and price changes caused by changes in exchange rates.
The Breaking of the “Contract of the Century” and Australia’s Security Strategy Commitment
Derian and France were so angry that some commentators focused their attention on the rupture of the huge so-called “Contract of the Century.” In fact, the amount of the contract is of course very important, but it is by no means a major factor. The French company Naval, which is responsible for building these submarines, has world-class submarine technology. Now it has undertaken numerous submarine contracts for countries including Brazil. Even such a huge plan to build submarines for Australia only accounts for the company’s business. According to the company, if the contract is cancelled, the hundreds of people already working on the plan will soon be diverted to other positions. And in fact, some other facilities and weapon systems of the submarine also involve other companies such as Martin in the United States, and the profits are not exclusive to the French company. Because of the quality of these submarines, in the end, there will never be no other countries (such as India, etc.) with demand and economic capacity willing to take over the purchase.
Derrian’s anger also has his own personal reasons: in 2016, when he was Minister of Defense under Hollande, after two years of negotiations, he finally won the contract through bidding and defeated Japan and Germany, and it was finalized by him in 2019. , At that time he had been transferred to Macron’s foreign minister. After the British Seven-nation Summit in June, Australian Prime Minister Morrison, who was specially invited to attend the meeting, made a special transfer to France to meet Macron. The two sides had a very happy meeting, and one of the important issues was the case. Macron said at that time that France would speed up the delivery of these advanced submarines so that Australia could better deal with the severe situation in the Indo-Pacific. Australia also expresses its gratitude to France for its understanding and support.