Yoon Seok-yeol ‘Financial support for the Weapons Value Alliance’ Australia and the US legislate ‘weapons information sharing’
President Yoon Seok-yeol defined arms exports as a 'value alliance peace industry' and established a 'production with local Australian steel with trade finance support' system in the export contract for Australian armored vehicles without blueprints, and Australia and the United States legislated 'weapons information sharing'. The gap has grown wider.
The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), unveiled by the U.S. Senate and House Armed Services Committees on the night of the 6th, is a legal provision that allows Australia to receive several U.S. nuclear-powered submarines under the AUKUS agreement, a defense agreement between the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. specified.
In a bill passed on August 13, Australia strengthened regulations on how industry and universities share defense technology with foreigners, while specifying an exemption system for the UK and US from Ocus' control, allowing them to access defense industry information and blueprints. Technology transfer was guaranteed by law.
The government-led defense industry, which announced on the 7th a contract to export armored vehicles to Australia, will proceed in the form of ‘production in Australia with Australian steel without blueprints and trade finance support from Korea.’
President Yoon said on the 7th at Hanwha Aerospace's Pangyo business site, "Some people have created negative public opinion by viewing the defense and weapons industries as war industries," and added, "The defense industry is a friendly country that shares our values and respects the international order, and the safety of its citizens." “It is a peace industry that guarantees,” he said.
In the Australian contract, Australian steel company Visaloy Steel will procure 100% of the steel for the Redback vehicle and K9, which are exported not only to Australia but also to international markets such as Europe, and POSCO's bulletproof steel 'MIL-12560H', which will be used in the K self-propelled howitzer, is only supplied to the Korean military. It will be applied, and the foreign currency will be exported to Australia, Egypt, Poland, etc. by the Australian subsidiary (HDA), which is 100% owned by Hanwha, at the Hanwha Armored Vehicle Center of Excellence (H-ACE: Hanwha Armored Vehicle Center of Excellence) in Geelong, Victoria, Australia, on April 8, 2022. The K self-propelled gun is also a design drawing of the American M109A2 type and appears to be a tool for expanding the American standard 155mm artillery shell.
Reuters previously reported that Korea’s arms exports were ‘an unusual type of arms dealer that does not disclose the unit price of weapons at all.’
Richard Cho, CEO of HDA, said, “We jumped into the business through bold investment in a situation where we didn’t even have drawings. We completed the production of a prototype a month before deciding on the final candidate, and during the subsequent testing process, we kept all our promises to the Australian government. “Trust had a big impact on the final contract,” he told the Korean media on the 7th. The U.S. National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is a major bill that Congress (Senate and House of Representatives) has passed and enacted into law every year since 1961, and this time too, the Democratic and Republican parties As a result of the negotiations, it is certain that they will be passed by the Senate and the House of Representatives and signed by President Biden. The U.S. State Department has instructed all embassies to issue the Civilian Injury Incident Response Guidelines (CHIRG) to stop exporting weapons to foreign troops when they harm civilians with U.S.-made weapons. The Washington Post reported on the 13th.
These guidelines include training foreign troops, diplomatic response, and halting arms exports in the U.S. government's investigations of incidents in which foreign governments are suspected of killing or injuring civilians with U.S.-made weapons. In the case of Australian armored vehicles, the U.S. The advantage of being exempted from the 'restrictions' is large, so Korea's policy of encouraging exports of 'replicas of American weapons' to countries such as Poland and Egypt is shown.
WP said on the 4th, "Senior officials of the U.S. administration had conversations with Korean officials who were receptive to the idea of supplying artillery shells to Ukraine as long as it was indirect support," adding, "Ammunition (155mm) began to be supplied at the beginning of the year, and eventually “Korea has become a country that supplies more artillery shells than all European countries combined,” the report said.
Sweden's Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) announced in its '2020 International Arms Trade Trends Report' that 55% of Korean arms imports by US fighter jets and German submarines and 55% of Korea's arms exports were concentrated in Australia, and that 'Korea is the world's top 5 submarine exporter.' .
Regarding Australia's construction of Orcus' nuclear submarines, British Reuters reported that Korea was involved in Australia's construction project of eight nuclear submarines.
<Refer to Australian K self-propelled gun ‘local production of Australian steel’ export money ‘recovery’, April 8, 2022>