Taipei has hit back at former Australian prime minister Paul Keating after he said that Taiwan was “not a vital Australian interest,” calling it a “civil matter” for China.
Keating on Wednesday told the National Press Club of Australia that global concerns about China’s aggression toward Taiwan are overblown and criticized bipartisan pushback in his nation.
“Taiwan is not a vital Australian interest,” he said. “We have no alliance with Taipei. There is no piece of paper sitting in Canberra which has an alliance with Taipei.”
Photo: AP
He urged Canberra not to be drawn into a military engagement over Taiwan, “US-sponsored or otherwise,” and said that Taipei was “fundamentally a civil matter” for China.
He also referred to Taiwan as China’s “front doorstep.”
In Taipei, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) said that Taiwan and Australia are important partners, sharing universal values and common strategic interests, while China’s aggression had far-reaching implications.
“The crisis in the Taiwan Strait is by no means a domestic matter between Chinese, and the security of the Taiwan Strait involves the stability and prosperity of the Indo-Pacific region, but also the global peace, stability and development,” Ou said.
The Australian government had demonstrated the importance it attached to the issue in regional dialogues and other multilateral partnerships, she said, adding: “A peaceful and stable Indo-Pacific region is in the interest of Australia, Taiwan and other countries.”
There is international concern about Beijing’s military capability and potential plans for Taiwan.
It has increased its posturing in the Taiwan Strait, including with near-daily sorties of warplanes into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, peaking with 149 over four days last month.
In his appearance, Keating rejected the labeling of the Chinese flights as “incursions” and said: “The only time the Chinese will attack or be involved in Taiwan is if the Americans and the Taiwanese try and declare a change in the status of Taiwan.”
Keating said that the “general point” of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and previous leaders was that they would “harmoniously lead the Chinese people into coming to terms with one another.”
However, successive polling shows a growing majority of Taiwanese do not wish to be ruled by China.
Keating also incorrectly said that Australia has “always seen [Taiwan] as a part of China.”
“The whole world has regarded China and Taiwan as one country, the Taiwanese have regarded it as one country, the Chinese, one country,” he said.
Australia’s “one China” policy, like the US’, only acknowledges Beijing’s claim and does not recognize or reject it.
Lowy Institute senior fellow Richard McGregor told the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age that Keating’s narrative about Taiwan had been out of date “for decades.”
“Our military interest is not in fighting a war over Taiwan, but in helping ensure we don’t have to,” McGregor told the newspapers.
Sung Wen-ti (宋文堤), a lecturer on Taiwan-China-US relations at the Australian National University, said that Taiwan was important to Australia “for ideological affinity and for ensuring the credibility of the US’ values-based coalition-building, without which US withdrawal from the Indo-Pacific, and weakened Australia-US relationship, will become more likely.”
“Good people can disagree on whether that makes Taiwan per se a vital strategic interest to Australia, but a strong and dependable US regional engagement certainly is a vital interest for Australia,” Sung said. “And Taiwan is an important part of that puzzle.”
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