Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has a talent for putting his foot in his mouth. It cost him the leadership of the Liberal Party back in 1995, and it nearly cost him his consolation prize, the Foreign Affairs portfolio, soon after he received it in March 1996.
But now Downer has done it again, managing to simultaneously annoy Washington, Beijing, Taipei and probably also his own prime minister with his recent comments at a press conference in the Chinese capital.
Asked what attitude Australia would take in the event of a Chinese attack on Taiwan, and whether the US might call on Australia to assist in defending Taiwan under the terms of the ANZUS Treaty, Downer should have smiled politely and said, "Well, of course we hope no such thing will ever happen."
Instead he said: "Well, the ANZUS Treaty is a treaty which is, of course, symbolic of the Australian alliance with the US, but the ANZUS Treaty is invoked in the event one of our two countries, Australia or the US, being attacked. So some other military activity elsewhere in the world does not automatically invoke the ANZUS Treaty."
Both Prime Minister John Howard and the US administration must have been aghast to see the ANZUS Treaty described as "symbolic." ANZUS has been at the core of Australia's national security policy for over 50 years. In an increasingly dangerous strategic environment in the southeast Asian region, this is no time for a foreign minister to start describing his country's most important security guarantee as "symbolic."
Downer's comments were in any case factually wrong. The ANZUS Treaty says that "an armed attack on any of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack on its armed forces, public vessels or aircraft in the Pacific."
In other words, if China were to attack Taiwan, the US were to send its fleet into the Taiwan Strait and China were to attack that fleet or aircraft operating from it, then the ANZUS Treaty could most definitely be invoked.
No wonder Prime Minister Howard distanced himself from Downer's remarks, with their obvious potential for damaging the stability of the Asia-Pacific region.
There is an even more serious aspect to this affair. It is no accident that Downer made these comments immediately after a meeting with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (
Many people, possibly including Downer, have failed to notice during the last two years of international angst over Iraq that the Taiwan issue has emerged as one of the world's most dangerous flashpoints. Since Taiwan became a successful and prosperous democracy, the Taiwanese have become less and less interested in being "reunited" with the Communist dictatorship which rules China. The Chinese leadership knows this, and China has been making increasingly unsubtle threats to "liberate" Taiwan.
The tension in the Taiwan Strait is being aggravated by a power struggle behind the scenes in Beijing. A faction of hardline Marxist-Leninists based in the People's Liberation Army and headed by former President Jiang Zemin (
The old guard is using the Taiwan issue to whip up Chinese nationalist sentiment as a means to hang on to power. Recently Hu was forced by the hardliners to drop his slogan "peaceful rising," presumably because it suggested that China had given up the option of using force to "liberate" Taiwan.
Downer knows all this. All the more reason to guard his tongue while in Beijing, and not to start raising the possibility that Australia might abandon the US, its closest ally, in the event of a crisis over Taiwan. His comments, whatever their intent, have the effect of encouraging the hardline faction in Beijing, and thus of discouraging the reformers, quite contrary to Australia's interests.
Ever since, Downer has been backpedaling, but the damage has been done. As the Labor Party's shadow foreign minister, Kevin Rudd (fluent in Chinese and also cautious about any Taiwanese moves that might provide an excuse for Chinese aggression), rightly said: "Now we face the prospect of Beijing having been misled about a strategic shift in Australia's posture on the Taiwan Straits." Rudd was right when he said there was "equal confusion in Taipei." Deputy Foreign Minister Michael Kau told an Australian current affairs program that Downer's comments were "rather discouraging." Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage was more forceful, reminding the Australian Foreign Minister about dangers of public speculation.
No doubt Downer can sort things out with Washington and Beijing. But what about the 23 million people of Taiwan? Over the past decade they have successfully held free elections, opened up their economy and done all the things developing countries are supposed to do to be welcomed into the family of democratic states. Yet Downer signals that Australia won't join the US in defending their right to self-determination in the face of Chinese bullying.
The US and Australia have rightly counseled Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian (
Michael Danby is opposition whip in the Australian House of Representatives and the secretary of the Labor Party's National Security Committee.
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