White House Says No Plans to Invite Canada to AUKUS, a Concern for Canada’s Military

U.S. President Joe Biden (C) participates in a trilateral meeting with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak (R) and Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (L) during the AUKUS summit at Naval Base Point Loma in San Diego Calif., on March 13, 2023. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)

There are no plans to invite Canada to a security pact between Australia, the UK, and the United States focused on defence technology cooperation, says U.S. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby.

The trilateral security pact, AUKUS, was formed in 2021 and has been seen as a way to counter China’s growing military presence in the Indo-Pacific region.

While its current primary, or “pillar one” focus is to help Australia develop nuclear-powered submarines, its “pillar two” focus includes collaboration on many technologies, including electronic warfare, artificial intelligence, and quantum technologies.

The pact is focused so much right now on the submarines that there are no specific plans to expand it beyond that or include Canada in it, Kirby said on CTV’s Question Period on June 11. AUKUS currently includes the United States and the UK because they have nuclear-powered submarine experience, he said.

“It’s not an alliance; it’s not some sort of club,” he said, adding that people are looking at it the wrong way.

Nonetheless, the commander of the Canadian Joint Operations Command has expressed his concerns over Canada’s absence from the pact.

‘Why Are We Not Included?’

“The fact is that [nuclear submarine] technology has existed for a while, so the sharing of that is not a big deal,” Vice-Admiral Bob Auchterlonie told The Canadian Press in January.

“The issue is when you start talking about advanced technology in terms of the artificial intelligence domain, machine learning, quantum, all of these things that really matter moving forward. Those are conversations we need to be in on. And the issue is: Why are we not included in this?”

Kirby said the United States works with Canada in other ways, such as through the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). “We work very well with the Canadian Armed Forces,” he said. “We know Canada is an Indo-Pacific power.”

But when asked whether Canada could be included in AUKUS in the future, Kirby said, “I just don’t have anything to say on that. ... There really aren’t discussions or plans.”

Although pillar one is focused on nuclear-powered submarines, the AUKUS partners announced in May a global breakthrough in artificial intelligence.

“The work saw the initial joint deployment of Australian, UK, and U.S. AI-enabled assets in a collaborative swarm to detect and track military targets in a representative environment in real-time,” a May 26 media release said. “Accelerating the development of these technologies will have a massive impact on coalition military capability.”

Role of AUKUS in Countering CCP

A June 6 report by an Australian think tank stresses the importance of the two AUKUS initiatives in countering the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

An analysis of 2 million scientific papers showed that Beijing has a great lead in military capabilities.

“Across a number of technology areas, China’s lead is so great that no aggregation of countries exceeds its share—highlighting the importance of the accelerating effect of greater collaboration between like-minded partners,” Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) said.

ASPI found that about 14 percent of high-impact authors in China had received their training in AUKUS countries, with most (8.5 percent) in the United States.

The USS Chung-Hoon observes a Chinese navy ship conduct what it called an "unsafe” Chinese maneuver in the Taiwan Strait, on June 3, 2023.  (Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Andre T. Richard/U.S. Navy via AP)

Kirby said tensions with the Chinese military in the Indo-Pacific are increasing, signaling a greater need for security, along with diplomatic communications.

On June 3, a Chinese warship came within 150 yards of hitting the American USS Chung-Hoon, which was travelling with Canadian ship HMCS Montreal in the Taiwan Strait.

Kirby said if incidents like this continue, aggressions might lead to real conflict.

“There’s a lot of chance for people to get hurt and nobody wants to see it devolve into that kind of confrontation.”

Cindy Li contributed to this report.