It is somewhat a betrayal. Secret negotiation is a way for US and Australia of telling to France (after 30 years of collaboration in Pacific) "We don't want to work on strategic stuff with France anymore".
The thing that make the french government angry is not much the cancellation of the contract, but how it was done it completely in secret behind his back.
You just don't do that to ally on the geopolitical stage.
> "Mind uploading" is the wrong way to look at it. How about "mind copying" for a best case (whether that copying requires the destruction of the original is another issue); "mind simulation" is a less palatable case.
One way we could do it, it's to slowly replace one by one natural neuron by a virtual or synthetic one and by keeping all synapse correctly connected. It should allow an "upload" (well more a conversion) without breaking consciousness continuity.