The US State Department’s No 2 now admits the AUKUS joint submarine project between three of the Five Eyes is tied to Taiwan and mainland China.

At the US State Department, the Ukraine girl is out, and the China guy is in. From Washington’s perspective, it was a right assignment. Whether that’s good for Asia and world peace is a different matter.

It means the militarisation of US diplomacy against China gets another big push with the new Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, who is considered a China expert.

As he told the Washington-based Centre for a New American Security this week, there is a need to link the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine project between Australia, Britain and the US to the defence of Taiwan. While that agenda was widely assumed, it was rarely so blatantly stated.

“[AUKUS has] enormous implications in a variety of scenarios, including in cross-strait circumstances,” he said.

“I would argue that working closely with other nations, not just diplomatically but in defence avenues, has the consequence of........

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