According to one diplomacy expert, the French government’s displeasure at the AUKUS trilateral pact is not about a cancelled $90 billion submarine project. Instead, the AUKUS agreement represents a significant step-up in countering Beijing, which may destabilise French and European efforts to maintain its “strategic autonomy” toward the Chinese Communist regime. “The French are very angry, not just about the submarine. They’ve been trying to avoid choosing between Washington and Beijing. They want their own ‘strategic autonomy,’” Joseph Siracusa, adjunct professor of international diplomacy at Curtin University, told Sky News Australia on Sept. 20. “Europe thought they could play the honest broker between Washington and Beijing, and then wake up one morning and find out that the United States, Britain and Australia have tied up together with this nuclear-enabled deal, and of course, it’s forcing Europe to make decisions it doesn’t want to make,” he said. Siracusa noted that the …