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Former prime minister Scott Morrison has called for Australia to deepen its relationship with Taiwan by overhauling its long-standing “One China” policy and allowing the self-governing territory to participate in key international forums such as the Quadrilateral security dialogue.
Warning that conflict over Taiwan would cause a severe global economic depression, radically alter the security environment in the Indo-Pacific and reset the balance of the international order in favour of authoritarianism, Morrison said the future of Taiwan was more important than any other conflict, including the war in Ukraine.
Former prime minister Scott Morrison said Taiwan was more central to the battle for liberty than anywhere else in the world. Credit: AP
“I believe Taiwan stands above them all,” he said. “[China’s] claims over Taiwan are a threat to the entire region … if Taiwan, then what and who is next?”
China has the world’s largest military force, including 2 million soldiers, and is rapidly building up its navy and nuclear arsenals to compete with the United States. The Chinese Air Force has been harassing Taiwan’s air defence identification zone daily, including on Wednesday when 14 aircraft were detected around the area. Control of Taiwan would give China access to the Pacific and allow its submarines to enter deep water undetected.
In his most comprehensive comments on China and Taiwan since leaving office last May, Morrison revealed that when he approved lethal support for Ukraine early last year, it was as much a decision to support Ukraine, as it was a message to China. “I was as concerned about Beijing as I was about Moscow,” he said.
Speaking in Taipei to the Yushan Forum, an event organised by the Taiwanese government, Morrison claimed China’s economic rise — which he said was the “single greatest economic miracle in human history” — had been deliberately used by China’s President Xi Jinping to establish a capability to forcibly bring Taiwan under Beijing’s control.
“This capability will soon be achieved, potentially within the next few years, with a target date set by President Xi for 2027,” he said in his speech, referring to US intelligence revealed by CIA director William Burns in February. “Whether the [People’s Republic of China] chooses to exercise this capability or not is another matter.”
To enhance deterrence of a Chinese invasion, Morrison said it was time to re-evaluate Australia’s One China policy, which acknowledges China’s claim to Taiwan but does not endorse it.
The policy has been widely interpreted within the federal government as limiting Australia from supporting Taiwan’s participation in key international forums and preventing senior politicians, such as sitting prime ministers, from meeting Taiwanese officials.
This interpretation has rankled Taiwanese officials, including Taiwan’s chief representative in Australia, who last month pleaded with local officials not to be “lazy” by falling into the trap of uncritically accepting Beijing’s claims about Taiwan’s territorial status.
“This appraisal should challenge the justice of denying the people of Taiwan, who have expressed a clear preference for freedom through the success of their representative democracy, greater certainty over their autonomy,” Morrison said.
He said the admission of Taiwan as a non-state into the Comprehensive and Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, Interpol and the World Health Organisation would “be a great start”, enhancing its practical autonomy “without crossing the threshold of national statehood”.
He also suggested it should be allowed adjunct non-member status in dialogues with multilateral forums, including the Quadrilateral security dialogue or “Quad”, a grouping of the United States, Japan, India and Australia.
“This means positively broadening the scope and nature of our unofficial relations with Taiwan, both bilaterally and multilaterally in non-political, humanitarian, scientific and trade arenas, within a modernised One China framework,” he said.
Support for declaring formal independence in Taiwan has been growing, according to polls by the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation, which reported 48.9 per cent of Taiwanese favoured independence in September compared to 26.9 per cent for maintaining the “status quo” and 11.8 per cent support unification with China.
However, no major Taiwanese political party has proposed pursuing formal independence because it would likely trigger a military response from Beijing.
In her national day speech on Tuesday, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen called for peaceful coexistence with China.
“Since this is a time we can now face the world with confidence and resolve, we can also be calm and self-assured in facing China, creating conditions for peaceful co-existence and future developments across the Taiwan Strait,” she said.
Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis from Jacqueline Maley. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter here.
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