David Fawcett (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I, and also on behalf of Senator O'Neill, move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

That United Nations Resolution 2758 of 25th October 1971 does not establish the People's Republic of China's sovereignty over Taiwan and does not determine the future status of Taiwan in the United Nations, nor Taiwanese participation in UN agencies or international organisations.

This is urgent because of the growing risk to the security and the stability in the Indo-Pacific. One of the key risks in this whole process is the status quo across the Taiwan Strait. It's important not just for the human rights of the 23.5 million people in the democracy that is Taiwan but for the impact that a decrease in security and a conflict there would have on the rules based order that underpins peace and security around the world, as well as for the global economic impact, which Australia would not escape. David Uren, in a paper for ASPI, highlighted that Australia's GDP would go back by six per cent and per capita take-home pay would decrease by 14 per cent if there were conflict across the Taiwan Strait.

What does a 1971 resolution in the UN have to do with these risks? If we go back to documents from the time, the then national security adviser Henry Kissinger, speaking with the then Premier of China, Zhou Enlai, established the fact that the PRC was concerned that what was then known as the Albanian resolution did not mention Taiwan. It did not address the status of Taiwan. It did not establish PRC sovereignty over Taiwan, and it did not determine Taiwan's participation in international bodies. That is in accordance with Australia's one-China policy, and many countries similarly have a policy that recognises the original intent of that motion, as opposed to what the PRC call their one-China principle, which they, since that time, have sought to impose.

What does that look like for Australia? We saw, in 2018, Qantas, along with 36 airlines around the world, be coerced by the PRC to change how Taiwan and Taipei were listed on their websites. We see the Marriott Hotel coerced into changing their practice. We see pressure placed upon UN bodies such as the World Health Organization to limit the ability of Taiwan to participate. We see the UN Office of Legal Affairs changing their language from the original intent, which included the ambiguity, to adopt the PRC narrative. We see the UN refusing accreditation to civil society bodies and NGOs that don't toe the line on the PRC narrative. We see universities in Australia coerced and pressured by the PRC to adopt their narrative because of funding for institutions, student bodies et cetera that are there. We also see at events, such as the Kimberley Process, unruly and unprofessional behaviour by Chinese representatives seeking to shut the process down until Taiwan's representatives are excluded.

This rewriting of history is what George Orwell foresaw when he said that, if you can control the past, you can control the future. Cognitive science indicates a thing called the illusory truth effect—that, if you say it often enough, people will start to believe it. That means the perception of truth will increase and therefore the potential for legitimacy will increase. That also increases the risk of conflict. The stakes of that conflict are high.

If the PRC wins acceptance in the international community for its position in this matter, then Taiwan's security and the status quo in the Taiwan Strait are at increased risk. The PRC will continue to advocate and claim that legally and politically it would be lawful for them to use force to achieve unification. The PRC would argue that measures by the international community to prevent or deter that are unlawful, and, more broadly, acceptance of the PRC's views and the legal meaning and impact of resolution 2758 would weaken the UN's integrity and increase challenges to the interational rules based order.

In the interests of peace, security and stability in our region, it's important and urgent both to restore the status quo for the peoples of Taiwan with respect to engagement and international bodies and to restore an accurate understanding of the original scope and intent of UN resolution 2758.

Debate interrupted.