Australia: Prime Minister Scott Morrison's busy diplomatic week
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison in London, September 15, 2021. AFP - TOLGA AKMEN
Text by: RFI Follow
3 min
Less than a week after announcing a strengthened military alliance with the United States and the United Kingdom, at the expense of France, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison is entering a busy diplomatic week.
He has just arrived in New York where, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, he is due to discuss with Joe Biden.
Another important meeting, undoubtedly more eventful, with several European leaders ahead of the next negotiating session for the signing between Canberra and Brussels of a free trade treaty, which France is trying to derail.
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With our correspondent in Sydney,
Grégory Plesse
This diplomatic week is going to be the most intense of Scott Morrison's career.
This is how the daily
The Australian
presents it this Tuesday morning
,
when the Australian Prime Minister has just arrived in New York.
On the menu, a meeting on Wednesday September 22 with Joe Biden, as well as the first meeting, in person, of the quadrilateral alliance, in which Japan and India will no doubt want to know how this security partnership will be structured. with the alliance just unveiled between Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom.
But the most delicate meeting for Scott Morrison will surely be the one bringing together Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven and European Union President Ursula van der Leyen.
The latter denounced this Monday, September 20 the "
unacceptable
"
treatment
that Australia has inflicted on France.
A meeting all the more sensitive as it takes place only one month before the 12th session of negotiations between Brussels and Canberra for the signing of a free trade treaty.
A treaty that the French are now trying to derail, according to several Australian government sources.
►
See also: Submarine crisis: supported by the EU, France again strongly criticizes Washington
Preparation of an armed conflict in Taiwan
Faced with the anger of Paris, the head of the Australian government has assumed more than ever his decision to break the mega-contract to purchase 56 billion euros of submarines.
An Australian decision that must be put back in the context of Beijing's rapid progress in the China Sea, in particular, but also its attitude towards Hong Kong, which suggests a potential conflict over Taiwan.
For Nadège Rolland, researcher at the National Bureau of Asian Research based in Washington, this is the reason why Australia has decided to adopt a more pro-active defense.
"
We are of course talking about submarines, but what we also hear is that in this new package that the Americans intend to offer Australia, there are many other things,"
says Nadège Rolland, attached by
Clea Broadhurst
, RFI International Service.
Other forms of armament, more advanced cooperation on cyber and missile capabilities in particular. So all this in effect means that Australia is making the decision to integrate its defense capabilities more and more deeply and over the long term with the United States
. "
“
This is something that France could not offer him,
recalls the researcher.
We proposed a contract for this delivery of conventional submarines which ended there.
With the United States, Australia is extending and strengthening its alliance with the aim of preparing for armed conflict in the region.
"
►
To read also: Crisis of the Australian submarines: "We were frank, open and honest" says Canberra
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Australia
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