'Doubtful' the US can 'rescue Taiwan' from China

nick to you first mike bazulo didn't explicitly name china but a week after defence minister peter dutton said war with china couldn't be discounted is there any doubt as to whom he was referring to who else is it going to be richard i mean we're not going to go to war with say bhutan are we um no i mean china is the nation that is behaving extremely aggressively uh extremely provocatively and projecting its force outside its its uh its sea lanes and and you look at this uh uh two days ago you saw president xi at a big show show and tell for the australian navy sorry the chinese navy down there in sanyan province and they've been building up this blue water naval fleet for some time it's quite formidable what are they going to do what are they going to do with it except project their power outside and obviously taiwan is in their sights yeah alan you've written extensively about china and emerging challenges across the indo-pacific in your eyes how likely is a conflict between the united states and china over taiwan well it's certainly a lot more likely than it was uh five years ago when people ask me that question i usually say it's probably gone from about 0.5 to probably about 25 now which is a substantial increase so the risk has clearly gone up it's not a beat up it's a it's a real problem and then there are two reasons for that one politically president xi jinping has determined that this is his highest priority he's 68 years old so he's probably got the best part of 10 years to bring about the reunification of taiwan by force if necessary he's on the record as having said that and secondly the balance of military power has shifted quite significantly towards china in that part of the world and it's doubtful now whether the united states could rescue taiwanese has done in the past because the chinese have got such a batteries of missiles there would be high risk for the us to do that so they're the two most important changes over the last 10 or 20 years now nick bill shorten has slammed mike pazulo for supposedly using hyper-excited language but isn't it a good thing to see senior public servants uh writing intelligently and honestly about current issues look at this reacher and i think the real you know it's a real worry if labor is not 100 rock-solid firm behind the government in in in looking sternly in china's face and saying we're not going to take it uh this is uh what you worry about is is a labor government that might go weak on this but i tell you what there was an interesting poll done last week for aspie the australian strategic policy institute and they found that 89 of australians would support australia going to the defense of an independent democratic nation with its allies if it was attacked by china so there's clearly a lot of public support a lot of public concern in that poll too and on other measures about how concerned people were about china so i i think that that that bill shorten is not only on dangerous grounds here but he's way out of step with the australian public and if we don't stand with taiwan we can't expect to china to stop there can we nick that would set quite a precedent if we all stand by and allow them to march into taiwan well that's right you know it's sort of you know who's going to be the last last one to be eaten by the tiger i mean we saw what in hong kong last last year they blatantly went in breach of the agreement they stuck with with the uk moved in basically taken the place over taiwan is obviously high on their list but what then you know you can see that way they're trying to get influence in the pacific on you know on sort of bankrupt governments like in the pacific and the victorian government they've come in with this belt and road project which is which is clearly a way of trying to um you know shackle them to debt uh china is behaving extremely extremely aggressively not like a a reasonable partner at all and it's no use us responding uh in a reasonable way if china's going to behave like that alan we saw reports today of xi jinping launching three new warships including a guided missile cruiser with stealth technology do western nations and the biden administration in particular have the military muscle to effectively deter china at sea well there's a big question mark over that it might surprise a lot of your listeners to know that the chinese submarine fleet for example is now the largest in the world and the problem for the united states is that if you look at it globally the us still probably outmuscles china militarily but if you just look in the taiwan strait and the area of the chinese close coast uh the the us would have a lot of problems uh supporting taiwan as i said previously because the china has built up a very formidable fleet as well as land-based missiles so as i said the balance of power has shifted very much towards china in that part of the world and so the u.s is now having a look at alternative strategies for defense helping taiwan defend itself and us and policymakers in camera having a lot of thinking about what australia might do if there is a conflict there would we send our own ships and aircraft to support the us would we stand back a bit and perhaps provide some surveillance aircraft these are the questions that the morrison government is now wrestling with and it's a very complex situation because a lot depends on how the conflict plays out i don't think the chinese would just carry out a full-scale invasion straight away they will probably seek to pressure taiwan economically maybe cyber attacks those sorts of those sorts of attacks are much more difficult to deal with because they're not clear-cut cases of aggression always you know cyber attack is always deniable and so it's a much more complex situation for australia to come to grips with it's not just about sending our ships or aircraft there we have to think a bit more in a more nuanced way about how we would respond in obviously a collaboration with our friends and allies including japan absolutely we've got to watch very carefully everything that's happening dr alan dupont nick cater thank you so much for your time this evening thank you rita

Channel: Sky News Australia

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Length: 6min 47sec (407 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 27 2021