Australia should cooperate more closely with Taiwan enhance cybersecurity, bilateral trade and economic relations, Australian parliamentarians said on Wednesday.
They learned that Taiwan is one of the most frequently cyberattacked places in the world, said Julian Hill, a member of Australia’s ruling Labor Party and chair of Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit, during a media roundtable in Taipei.
“So, there’s a lot that Australia can learn from Taiwan,” he said.
Photo: CNA
“We are equally facing very significant amounts of cyberattacks, but this is where it is very important for like-minded countries and people to learn from each other,” he said.
Australian industrial bases are also being hit hard by cyberespionage, Hill said.
Australia primarily faces cyberattacks from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, said Australian Representative Shayne Neumann, chair of the Parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade.
There are existing exchanges between police forces in Taipei and Canberra regarding cybersecurity, said Andrew Wallace, a member of Australia’s Liberal Party.
“Cybersecurity is not necessarily just a national security issue, it also involves child sexual labor slavery... Those connections between our various police forces, the Australian Federal Police and the police in Taiwan are very important,” he added.
On the prospect of Taiwan and Australia signing a free-trade deal, Neumann said that Australia is pushing to sign a trade deal with the EU first, but added that he understands Taiwan’s desire to reach a trade deal.
Taiwan is Australia’s seventh-largest trading partner, and Australia is a main source of coal and natural gas imports for Taiwan, so the nation is important to Australia and both sides have been deepening trade arrangements for a long time, Neumann said.
His party is interested in exploring a closer economic relationship with Taiwan, given the size of the nation as a market and the fact that both countries are APEC members, Australian parliamentarian Dave Sharma of the Liberal Party said.
As for Australia’s take on Taiwan losing Pacific ally Nauru earlier this year, Sharma said that although it is Nauru’s decision to make, based on its sovereign interests, Australia does “have an interest in ensuring that Taiwan retains some diplomatic space.”
It is important that there are still channels and avenues for dialogue with Taiwan from around the world, Sharma said, adding that it is why Australia supports Taiwan’s presence in international organizations.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and