US, BRITISH and Australian leaders announced details of the Aukus nuclear submarine pact at a San Diego press conference today — but China warned the deal would harm regional stability and peace.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, flanked by United States President Joe Biden and British PM Rishi Sunak, said the 368 billion Australian dollar (£201bn) package was the biggest single investment in Australia’s defence capability in its history.

The nuclear-powered subs due to be built under the deal are faster than Australia’s diesel-powered fleet and can launch long-range strikes against other countries. Australia says they will create 20,000 jobs in the country, while Mr Sunak also claimed thousands of jobs would be created in Britain’s armaments sector.

Mr Albanese said the deal was a necessary response to the arms build-up in the Pacific.

But Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said the move would only accelerate the arms race and damage the international nuclear non-proliferation regime.

“The latest joint statement shows that the three countries have gone further down a wrong and dangerous path … ignoring the concerns of the international community,” he warned.

Mr Wang accused Washington of coercing the International Atomic Energy Agency into endorsing the plan and said it exposed claims that the three abide by the highest nuclear non-proliferation standards as “pure deception.”

China sees the Aukus pact, like new British military agreements with Japan and the four-nation “Quad” — the US, India, Australia and Japan — as part of US plans to encircle it militarily, a counterpart to trade sanctions designed to disrupt its high-tech industries.

Chinese President Xi Jinping declared last week that “Western countries led by the US have implemented all-round containment, encirclement and suppression of China, which has brought unprecedented grave challenges to our nation’s development.”

Chinese military spending remains just a quarter of that of the US, but Mr Xi vowed on Monday to “build the people’s army into a great wall of steel” to protect the country from Western aggression.

Fears that war is looming were raised in January when US Air Mobility Command chief General Mike Minihan wrote to officers under his command that he expected a US-China war to start in 2025.