Australia would act according to the US response in the event of a Chinese attack on Taiwan, Australian Minister for Defence Peter Dutton said in an interview with Sky News yesterday.
“China’s been very clear about their intent with regard to Taiwan. Equally, the United States has been clear about their intention toward Taiwan,” Dutton said.
“Nobody wants to see conflict, but that really is a question for the Chinese,” he said.
Photo: AFP
When asked by reporter Annelise Nielsen whether Australia was ever likely to find itself in an armed conflict with China, Dutton talked about Australia’s 70-year history of military cooperation with the US.
If Taiwan were attacked, Australia would see “what the American response was,” Dutton said, adding that “we obviously have an alliance with the United States.”
Dutton said he had been focused on China during the past six years since he joined the Australian National Security Committee.
China’s actions have been a concern and Australia wants its neighbors to be free of coercion, interference or bullying, he said.
Given Australia’s comparatively small population of about 25 million, it is important for it to have good friends, which it has with nations such as the US, the UK, Canada and New Zealand, Dutton said.
The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue between the US, India, Japan and Australia, and ASEAN are also important for stability, he said.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest foundry service provider, yesterday said that global semiconductor revenue is projected to hit US$1.5 trillion in 2030, after the figure exceeds US$1 trillion this year, as artificial intelligence (AI) demand boosts consumption of token and compute power. “We are still at the beginning of the AI revolution, but we already see a significant impact across the whole semiconductor ecosystem,” TSMC deputy cochief operating officer Kevin Zhang (張曉強) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “It is fair to say that in the past decade, smartphones and other mobile devices were
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