How big a deal is it that Australia has chosen a British design for its nuclear submarines rather than the US one that it could have chosen? Does it really justify Rishi Sunak ‘bouncing on the balls of his feet’, as described by one minister?

True, the machines aren’t actually going to be built in Britain, but in Adelaide. But it isn’t going to do the UK defence industry any harm to be supplying the know-how. For once, the government can celebrate selling arms to a country which can be trusted not to abuse its military kit, and which is not stringing up dissidents by the dozen.

Aukus is a sign of opportunities to come as Britain seeks to forge new relationships post-Brexit

The significance of the deal – which Joe Biden is set to discuss at a meeting with Sunak and the Australian Prime Minister in San Diego on Monday – goes far deeper than UK defence jobs, however. A couple of years ago it was France which had been lined up to build Australia’s new submarines. Then, in September 2021, came the Aukus treaty between Australia, the UK and the US, in which the three countries united to provide a submarine presence in the Pacific. The deal just announced is a physical manifestation of that treaty.

Aukus is looking like the seed of a Nato-type organisation for the Pacific, with the aim of providing a united front against possible future Chinese aggression in the region, just as Nato is against Russian aggression in Europe. Last December, Japan and Australia announced a cooperation between air forces which will see some Japanese fighter planes based in Australia and vice-versa. In air defence, the US – which has supplied Japan’s F35 fighter aircraft – completes the triumvirate. It is not hard to see these two initiatives evolving into a formal ‘POTO’ – a Pacific Ocean Treaty Organisation – which might also involve other Pacific rim countries which are not aligned to China. With Xi Jinping still believed to have his eyes on Taiwan, the rise of a counter military allegiance in the Pacific couldn’t come at a more appropriate moment.

For Britain, there is the danger of being dragged into conflict on the opposite side of the world. But Aukus is a sign of opportunities to come as Britain seeks to forge new relationships post-Brexit. The government has also applied to join the Trans Pacific Partnership, an embryonic Pacific free trade area. Unlike the EU, the TPP has no designs on political union. It also gives free trade access to countries whose economies are generally more perky than those in Europe. The TPP has not had an easy birth, however, and had to be relaunched as a smaller agreement after Donald Trump withdrew the US in 2017. It is now formally known as the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and includes 11 members, with the UK as an applicant nation along with China.

Does it matter that Britain is not anywhere near the Pacific? For decades the world has seemed to have been heading in the direction of regional pacts. But there is no definitive reason why this should be the case, any more than individuals limiting their friendships to people who live on the same street. In any case the Pacific is a rather large place: to travel from Australia to Canada is nearly as far as the journey from Australia to Britain. If Britain can forge new alliances outside Europe it might just provide the government with a post-Brexit boost it is currently lacking, especially with empty supermarket shelves wrongly blamed on Brexit. No wonder Rishi Sunak is bouncing around on the balls of his feet.