Li Song, China's permanent representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency, once again stressed that the AUKUS nuclear submarine deal is a cover for nuclear proliferation at the board meeting of the IAEA in Vienna on Thursday.

No matter how far the de facto anti-China bloc has gone to justify the deal, they cannot deny its fundamental nature, which is the transfer of weapons-grade highly enriched uranium from two nuclear-weapon states to a non-nuclear-weapon state.

That violates the principles and practices of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and severely undermines the international non-proliferation regime and the IAEA's safeguards system.

Thursday's meeting marked the eighth consecutive time the IAEA has reviewed the AUKUS issue through intergovernmental discussions.

But rather than addressing the international community's concerns with concrete actions, fulfilling their non-proliferation obligations, and maintaining candid and transparent communication with other parties on the basis of equality and mutual respect, the AUKUS countries have attempted to depict their nuclear submarine deal as a routine safeguards issue between a non-nuclear-weapon state and the IAEA Secretariat.

They have requested the IAEA invoke Article 14 of the Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement to make safeguards exemption arrangements, which, as the Chinese envoy stressed, is "a clandestine move to coerce the IAEA Secretariat into endorsing their cooperation". To bypass the nuclear nonproliferation rules, the AUKUS countries claimed they would work out suitable arrangements with the IAEA Secretariat. Such a move is not only of no legitimacy, but also sets a bad example.

The representatives of more than 20 countries put forward different perspectives on the AUKUS deal that involves complicated political, security, legal and technical issues. In the face of such opposition, since AUKUS unilaterally announced the deal in September 2021, the three countries have sought to divide the members of the nuclear energy watchdog into confrontational blocs.

Interestingly, the Western media organizations have neither reported these countries' concerns nor AUKUS' dirty underhand dealings within the IAEA, even if promoting nuclear nonproliferation has always been regarded as political correctness in their editorial policies.

The IAEA Secretariat should comply with the IAEA Statute and the mandates of member states, rather than yield to the pressure of the US.

In the eyes of the three countries, all of the IAEA rules are expendable. The more they try to advance the AUKUS deal in an underhand way, the more all countries need to join hands to steadily advance an open, inclusive, transparent and sustainable intergovernmental discussion process on the issue.