In an interview aired on Tuesday, former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi lambasted former Australian prime minister Paul Keating for calling Taiwan “Chinese real-estate.” The Guardian reported that Pelosi told the Australian Broadcasting Corp that “it is really not in the security interest of the Asia-Pacific region for people to talk that way.”
In response, Keating said that Pelosi had made “a recklessly indulgent visit to Taiwan in 2022, [which] very nearly brought the United States and China to a military confrontation.”
Keating has long said that Australia should not be drawn into a conflict over the status of Taiwan, and said that while in office from 1991 to 1996, he was representing “the national interests of Australia,” and that “the whole world recognizes as one country, China and Taiwan,” the Guardian reported.
It is unsurprising for an Australian politician to make statements that favor Beijing’s position on Taiwan. The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s Web site refers to China as Australia’s largest two-way trading partner, accounting for 27 percent of its foreign trade last year. In 2019, Chinese students spent more than A$12 billion (US$8 billion) to attend schools in Australia, figures from the data-gathering Web site Statista showed. That makes the suspension of Australian activist Drew Pavlou from his final semester at the University of Queensland unsurprising, after making comments in support of the 2019 democracy protests in Hong Kong. Then-Chinese consul general in Brisbane Xu Jie (徐杰) was an adjunct professor at the Confucius Institute on the university’s campus at the time.
In an article published on May 8, 2020, on the Web site of the US-based Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, former US deputy assistant secretary of defense for South and Southeast Asia Amy Searight wrote that “although China’s rising influence is felt all across the globe, perhaps no country has been as roiled politically by China’s growing influence and political ambitions as Australia has over the past several years.”
First came revelations about donations to try to alter Australian political parties’ policies on China, and then came questions about Beijing’s efforts to co-opt Chinese-language media in Australia, she wrote.
Despite those efforts, Australia-China relations have often been rocky. In 2020, Beijing placed anti-dumping tariffs of 218.4 percent on Australian wines. The tariffs, which were lifted on March 29, were widely seen as retaliation after former Australian prime minister Scott Morrison vetoed the state of Victoria’s Belt and Road Initiative deal with China.
China has also jailed Australian citizens including writer Yang Hengjun (楊恒均) and reporter Cheng Lei (成蕾), while its military and coast guard have clashed with Australian vessels and aircraft. In 2022, Australia tracked a Chinese intelligence ship within 50 nautical miles (92.6km) of a sensitive defense facility on Australia’s west coast. In May, a Chinese J-10 jet dropped flares above and several hundred meters ahead of an Australian MH-60R Seahawk helicopter operating over the Yellow Sea.
Nevertheless, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on June 17 met with Chinese Premier Li Qiang (李強) in Canberra, where the two agreed to “properly manage” their differences after trade barriers cost Australian exporters up to A$20 billion per year, The Associated Press reported.
Australia is not unique in its trade reliance on China, and it does not even trade with China as much as Taiwan does. However, Australia’s autonomy should not be subject to threats due to its trade relationship with China. Despite Keating’s comments to the contrary, Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific region is a concern for Australia, and the global community. Taipei should communicate its concerns with Canberra when Australian officials make concerning comments about Taiwan’s sovereignty.
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