Australia would not commit troops in advance to any conflict, Australian Minister for Defence Industry Pat Conroy said yesterday in response to a report that said the US was pressing allies to clarify what role they would play if the US and China went to war over Taiwan.
Australia prioritizes its sovereignty and “we don’t discuss hypotheticals,” Conroy said. “The decision to commit Australian troops to a conflict will be made by the government of the day.”
The Financial Times on Saturday reported that US Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby has been pressing Australian and Japanese officials on what they would do in a Taiwan conflict, although the US does not offer a blank check guarantee to defend Taiwan.
Photo: AFP
Colby posted on X that the US Department of Defense is implementing US President Donald Trump’s “America First” agenda of restoring deterrence, which includes “urging allies to step up their defense spending and other efforts related to our collective defense.”
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, speaking in Shanghai at the start of a six-day visit to China that is likely to focus on security and trade, said Canberra did not want any change to the “status quo” on Taiwan.
Meanwhile, Talisman Sabre, Australia’s largest war-fighting exercise with the US, began yesterday in Sydney Harbor and is to involve 40,000 troops from 19 countries, including Japan, South Korea, India, the UK, France and Canada.
The war games would span thousands of kilometers from Australia’s Indian Ocean territory of Christmas Island to the Coral Sea on Australia’s east coast, in a rehearsal of joint war fighting, Australian Chief of Joint Operations Vice Admiral Justin Jones said.
The air, sea, land and space exercises over two weeks will “test our ability to move our forces into the north of Australia and operate from Australia,” Jones said.
“I will leave it to China to interpret what 19 friends, allies and partners wanting to operate together in the region means to them. But for me... it is nations that are in search of a common aspiration for peace, stability, a free and open Indo-Pacific,” he said.
US Army Lieutenant General Joel Vowell said Talisman Sabre would improve the readiness of militaries to respond together and was “a deterrent mechanism because our ultimate goal is no war.”
MISINFORMATION: The generated content tends to adopt China’s official stance, such as ‘Taiwan is currently governed by the Chinese central government,’ the NSB said Five China-developed artificial intelligence (AI) language models exhibit cybersecurity risks and content biases, an inspection conducted by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The five AI tools are: DeepSeek, Doubao (豆包), Yiyan (文心一言), Tongyi (通義千問) and Yuanbao (騰訊元寶), the bureau said, advising people to remain vigilant to protect personal data privacy and corporate business secrets. The NSB said it, in accordance with the National Intelligence Services Act (國家情報工作法), has reviewed international cybersecurity reports and intelligence, and coordinated with the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau and the National Police Agency’s Criminal Investigation Bureau to conduct an inspection of China-made AI language
LIMITS: While China increases military pressure on Taiwan and expands its use of cognitive warfare, it is unwilling to target tech supply chains, the report said US and Taiwan military officials have warned that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could implement a blockade within “a matter of hours” and need only “minimal conversion time” prior to an attack on Taiwan, a report released on Tuesday by the US Senate’s China Economic and Security Review Commission said. “While there is no indication that China is planning an imminent attack, the United States and its allies and partners can no longer assume that a Taiwan contingency is a distant possibility for which they would have ample time to prepare,” it said. The commission made the comments in its annual
CHECKING BOUNDARIES: China wants to disrupt solidarity among democracies and test their red lines, but it is instead pushing nations to become more united, an expert said The US Department of State on Friday expressed deep concern over a Chinese public security agency’s investigation into Legislator Puma Shen (沈伯洋) for “secession.” “China’s actions threaten free speech and erode norms that have underpinned the cross-strait ‘status quo’ for decades,” a US Department of State spokesperson said. The Chongqing Municipal Public Security Bureau late last month listed Shen as “wanted” and launched an investigation into alleged “secession-related” criminal activities, including his founding of the Kuma Academy, a civil defense organization that prepares people for an invasion by China. The spokesperson said that the US was “deeply concerned” about the bureau investigating Shen
‘TROUBLEMAKER’: Most countries believe that it is China — rather than Taiwan — that is undermining regional peace and stability with its coercive tactics, the president said China should restrain itself and refrain from being a troublemaker that sabotages peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday. Lai made the remarks after China Coast Guard vessels sailed into disputed waters off the Senkaku Islands — known as the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) in Taiwan — following a remark Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made regarding Taiwan. Takaichi during a parliamentary session on Nov. 7 said that a “Taiwan contingency” involving a Chinese naval blockade could qualify as a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, and trigger Tokyo’s deployment of its military for defense. Asked about the escalating tensions
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