One more update from Penny Wong’s foreign policy speech to the Australian National University:
The Australian government and the Labor party have both raised concerns in recent times about an increase in Chinese military pressure against Taiwan, a democratically governed island of 24 million people, amid Beijing’s long-term goal of “unification” with what it considers its territory.
Wong has taken aim at the defence minister, Peter Dutton, for telling the Australian newspaper earlier this month: “It would be inconceivable that we wouldn’t support the US in an action if the US chose to take that action.”
Wong characterised this as out of step with US policy of strategic ambiguity and blamed domestic political considerations. “Amping up the prospect of war against a superpower is the most dangerous election tactic in Australian history,” she said in her prepared remarks.
In the question and answer session, the head of the ANU’s national security college, Prof Rory Medcalf, asks: “If the government is essentially expressing support for a democracy of our size in our region against that kind of intimidation, what’s wrong with that and what would Labor do differently?”
Wong replies that the issue of Taiwan is a “finely balanced and complex” issue, adding: “You are correct to assess that the threat of conflict is rising. I think the question is what is it that Australia can do most to preserve the status quo.”
Wong says successive US administrations and Australian governments have sought to take positions to preserve the status quo and avoid conflict.
“My point is our job really is to ensure we create the disincentive collectively for conflict and continue to create as many incentives as possible for peace. I accept this is historically and now an issue where governments have recognised the downside of the sort of binary way Mr Dutton is construing it. I’m making a point that I do not believe, particularly given the US position, that that is the way in which we are most likely to create that incentive for the status quo.”
A member of the audience asks about China’s economic coercion against Australia over the past 18 months and whether Labor would do anything different about those trade actions.
Wong says it’s an area where there is “clear bipartisanship” between Labor and the Coalition. She says she has described China’s behaviour across a range of contexts as “not being the behaviour of a responsible global power”. She repeats the Australian government’s position that China’s behaviours in the trade area are inconsistent with its commitments under the China-Australia FTA and the World Trade Organization.
“It is an example of where we are in the China relationship. China has changed, the nature of the relationship has changed, and there will be enduring differences that need to be managed and dealt by whoever is in government and that will not change. I think of it as these are the structural aspects of the relationship. However we know that we have to continue to engage. The question for governments over the coming years is how to do that and how do we do that in a way that recognises and manages these differences that are going to endure.”