Rex Patrick (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Today I will move a motion in relation to the status of Taiwan, an island territory that is a flourishing constitutional democracy with nearly 24 million people and is a key Australian trading partner. I want to take the opportunity to speak about the background to that motion. While much of the media and public attention has been focused on the drama of the US presidential election campaign, closer to home the Taiwan Strait has emerged as a strategic flashpoint. This is a situation with very important implications for the peace and security of the Asia-Pacific region and for Australia's national security.

The Chinese communist regime in Beijing claims Taiwan as an absolute core interest of sovereignty and territorial integrity. This is a strongly assertive claim that is made in spite of the fact that, apart from a brief period between the end of the Second World War and the communist victory in the Chinese civil war in 1949, Taiwan has not been controlled by a regime in Beijing since 1895. China's and Taiwan's paths diverged a long time ago, but the Chinese Communist Party is quite unreconciled with that.

Since the early 1970s, the United States and Australia have held to a policy of strategic ambiguity in relation to Taiwan, acknowledging Beijing's claim to Taiwan while maintaining extensive unofficial relations with Taipei. We have long been insistent that Taiwan's autonomous status must not be changed by force or by threat of force. For some four decades, China has undertaken to pursue reunification through peaceful means. Provided China accepted the status quo and pursued peaceful trade and other contracts across the Taiwan Strait, all seemed well. Over recent decades, however, Taiwan's vibrant democracy has demonstrated little interest in subordinating its freedoms to the Chinese Communist Party. In response, President Xi's regime has stepped up nationalistic rhetoric about Taiwan.

Earlier this year, the Chinese National People's Congress dropped the word 'peaceful' from its stated objective of securing Taiwan's reunification with the Chinese mainland. At Senate estimates last month, Frances Adamson, the secretary of our Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and a diplomat with much experience in China, observed that it was 'a notable omission' and that our diplomats were 'frankly, concerned by it'. That shift in position at the top of the Chinese political system has been accompanied by an escalation of Chinese air force and naval incursions into Taiwanese airspace and waters. While there appears to be no indication of an immediate move towards military action, Beijing has very deliberately turned up the temperature in the Taiwan Strait.

China has engaged in or threatened military action on three previous occasions: in 1954-55, in 1958 and in 1995-96. When I asked Ms Adamson at estimates whether there was a risk of another Taiwan Strait crisis in the near or medium future, she gave a very diplomatic but significant reply. She said that she hoped we wouldn't get to that point but went on to say:

It is certainly something I would be more concerned about this year than a year ago or possibly in fact at any time over the last 3½ decades that I've worked on this subject …

The United States and Australia have responded to Beijing's increasingly belligerent position. The US has stepped up high level contact with Taiwan, with visits by the US Secretary of Health and Human Services and a US under secretary of state. President-elect Joe Biden has indicated he intends to take a firm position in relation to China, including Beijing's ambitions towards Taiwan. Taiwan featured in the AUSMIN communique issued by our Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Defence and the US Secretary of State and US Secretary of Defense after their meeting in the US in July. Taiwan had last been mentioned in an AUSMIN communique 15 years previously, in 2005, and that was only a brief mention that called on China and Taiwan to resolve their differences peacefully through negotiation. The July 2020 AUSMIN communique contained a much stronger statement in which the US and Australian governments reaffirmed:

… Taiwan's important role in the Indo-Pacific region as well as their intent to maintain strong unofficial ties with Taiwan and to support Taiwan's membership in international organisations where statehood is not a prerequisite.

The US and Australia further expressed a resolve to support Taiwan and:

… reiterated that any resolution of cross-Strait differences should be peaceful and according to the will of the people on both sides, without resorting to threats or coercion.

However, the most recent indication is that China is determined to increase pressure on Taiwan. Despite Taiwan's tremendous success in suppressing the COVID-19 outbreak, China continues to veto Taiwan's informal participation in the World Health Organization.

Last Saturday, the official publication of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference ran an important op-ed written by Wang Zaixi, a former senior official in China's State Council Taiwan Affairs Office. Wang candidly acknowledged that political opinion in Taiwan had developed decisively in strong opposition to eventual reunification. He observed that the Taiwanese Democratic Progressive Party has very effectively marginalised the pro-Beijing political opposition. The Chinese Communist Party views Taiwanese democracy as a grave and persistent problem. Against this backdrop, Wang observed, 'It may be difficult to achieve the goal of cross-Strait reunification without using military force.' As a number of expert Chinese watchers have pointed out, this is the first time that a senior Chinese Communist Party official, current or former, has publicly raised the prospect of using armed force to secure Taiwan, since the CCP leader Deng Xiaoping called for peaceful reunification in 1979. Coming after the earlier tweak in the National People's Congress position and the step-up of Chinese military activity, these comments could well signal a further hardening of China's stance. The use of armed force, the threat of invasion, might still be a last resort, but it's now clearly on the table.

Where does this leave the United States and Australia? Regrettably, the longstanding policy of strategic ambiguity may well have run its course, and it will be necessary to face major decisions about our relations with Taiwan. It is consistent with Australia's values and national interest that we support Taiwan's democratic autonomy and strongly oppose any attempts to change Taiwan's status by force or threat of force. I don't think it could be in any way acceptable to allow the Taiwanese democracy and the fate of nearly 24 million people to be subject to military coercion and, if unsupported, force surrendered to Beijing. It would involve a betrayal of democratic principles and a strategic setback of grave significance for Australia's security in the Asia-Pacific region. For those with a sense of history, a failure to support Taiwan's democracy and autonomy would be comparable with the Munich settlement of 1938 and the resultant Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia. If we are to avoid these challenges, we need to send Beijing some very clear messages about Taiwan.

The motion I will put to the Senate for consideration later today draws on the language of the July AUSMIN communique and lays out several key principles: that Australia should unequivocally express our longstanding view that any resolution of the cross-Strait differences between China and Taiwan must be peaceful, that threats from China to employ military force against Taiwan constitutes a threat to peace and security in the Pacific region and that the Australian Senate should express strong support for Taiwan's autonomy and democracy and the absolute right of the Taiwanese people to determine their own future free from threats of coercion. I trust that such a statement of these important principles will enjoy the full support of the Senate.