China has already revealed plans to ‘unify Taiwan by force’

now as you may know senator jim mullen is on sick leave at the moment trying to deal with a cancer diagnosis but he's written a piece today in the australian which urges the government to prepare now for what may soon be a war in our region between china and taiwan the former major general doesn't rule out australia coming under attack and says we can no longer rely on the united states to come to our aid meanwhile over the weekend more threats from beijing towards our politicians this time who china say us china says adjoining forces with terrorists in condemning the government's treatment of uyghurs in xinjiang extraordinary stuff a foreign ministry spokesman said canberra will be burned whatever that means to discuss how we need to prepare for what's ahead i'm joined now by michael shoebridge director of defense and strategy at the australian strategic policy institute thank you for your time michael great to talk with you we've had plenty of friction in the last two years between australia and china which has led to these trade breakdowns and now just in the last two weeks the word war has been installed in the conversations are we getting ahead of ourselves a little bit too much well i think we've got to be clear about what our regional environment looks like you know we're having this ridiculous domestic debate about who's saying what to whom here in australia and we seem to be overlooking the nasty but empirically true facts about the way the chinese government is growing their military power and using their military power so there should be a proper discussion in australia about that what are the implications for australian and regional security in the way that z is using and growing chinese military power so i think that's that's a discussion we have to have and we need to have less of the furious light and noise about who's beating up the prospects of war and who's not because this is not really so much about us it's about what china is doing okay so we presume or should we not presume anything that china may take taiwan militarily and i guess we cannot presume then that the us will come to taiwan's aid that's the suggestion from jim marlon today would you agree no no i don't think we have to presume that china has plans to take taiwan by military force their leader xi jinping has said that he has plans to unify taiwan with the mainland by force he has said he has those plans he's quite clearly with his actions on hong kong ending the one country two systems model for hong kong ruled out that same model as something that anyone on taiwan can believe but america i think is able to be relied on by taiwan and the rest of the region in understanding that taiwan's security matters to all of us uh and certainly for australia we're an island democracy of 26 million people in the indo-pacific surely the future and freedom of an island of around 23 million people in the indo-pacific that's a democracy matters to us too yeah see that's the interesting thing there are some people who would argue why are we getting involved in something that really is uh an issue as they say the china-china taiwan issue between china and taiwan with of course the u.s weighing into it but what's it got to do with australia what what's your response to people who suggested we should butt out of it well i think my first response is that's the beijing government's narrative and you should always be careful when you're parroting the beijing government's line back with your own voice that's the first thing i'd say to people that say those things next one is if an island democracy of 23 million people's security doesn't matter and no one should help them then why on earth should anyone think that we would get help so collective security matters and democracy matters second one is if if taiwan just as a piece of real estate is important then it's fundamentally important for how china can project power more broadly taiwan not being in the ownership of the chinese state constrains the chinese military's projection of power then there's the sheer economics china is taiwan is a centre of semiconductor global capacity and technology to be a massive own goal to give that gift to the chinese economy and take that gift away from the democratic world they're very sound arguments i want to play something from dan tian minister federal minister who had this to say about these furthering um arguments over war and military preparedness this is dentin no we don't have it we'll play dante now given our two countries different histories different world views and different political and legal systems new zealand and china are going to take different perspectives on important issues we will continue to work these through in a consistent manner as we have always done but as minister mahuta said last month we need to acknowledge that there are some things on which china and new zealand do not cannot and will not agree jacinda ardern of course the prime minister for new zealand not dante and although dan did say something today what are your thoughts about new zealand's role in all of this they have in terms of trade been very careful not to upset the chinese is that something they might stick to in terms of china v taiwan well i think new zealand policy makes me think of that saying hope is not a method they really have a policy that looks very like australia's back in 2012. it might have been fit for purpose for the china we had in 2012 it doesn't work with the china we have in 2021. i think new zealanders will come to understand that in coming years and their policy as they experience the nature of chinese power will look a lot more like australia's unless they want to give up on their interests and values michael shoebridge thank you very much for your time thank you

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Length: 6min 51sec (411 seconds)

Published: Mon May 03 2021