Ex-PM Keating accuses Australian govt of bending to U.S. will on AUKUS

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Former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating appears by video link as he addresses the National Press Club in Canberra, March 15, 2023. /CFP

Former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating accused the Albanese government of bending to the will of the United States over the trilateral Australia-UK-U.S. (AUKUS) cooperation on nuclear submarines, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported on Saturday.

Keating said in a TV program that AUKUS is really about, in American terms, the military control of Australia.

"The Albanese government and their policy is likely to turn Australia into the 51st state of the United States," he said.

Keating said that Australia has a continent of its own and a border with nobody, and Australia is not likely to be threatened. "The only threat likely to come for us is because we have an aggressive ally, because of AUKUS."

He said that if Australia didn't have an aggressive ally, like the United States, that is aggressive toward others in the region, there would be nobody attacking Australia. Keating also explained that the United States is aggressive because it is trying to superintend China, and China has no strategic designs on Australia.

ABC also quoted Keating in its news report as saying that the strength and scale of the U.S. base in Australia will eclipse Australia's own military capability, such that Australia will be viewed in the United States as a continental extension of American power akin to that which it enjoys in Hawaii, Alaska and more limitedly in places like Guam.

"Such an outcome is likely to turn the Australian government, in defense and security terms, into simply the national administrator of what would be broadly viewed in Asia as a U.S. protectorate," he said.

(With input from Xinhua)