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Australian Polity, Volume 10 Number 1 & 2

March 2022 issue of Australian Polity

March 2022 issue of Australian Polity

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Japan. While ruling the island for half a century, the

Japanese built the foundations of modern Taiwan,

including the thriving port of Keelung. The relatively

positive Taiwanese experience of the Japanese has

aided relations in recent decades.

Another recent election in a nation closer to Australia

was also significant. After a three-month constitutional

crisis, the Samoan Supreme Court declared the election

of Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa to be valid,

ending the 22-year reign of the Beijing aligned Tuila’epa

Sa’ilele Malielegaoi.

The new prime minister immediately cancelled a $100

million Chinese financed project to expand the island’s

seaport, saying it exceeded the Pacific Island nation’s

needs and would impose considerable debt on the

country. It was a major setback to China, whose leader Xi

Jinping, had visited Samoa twice. Perhaps the new Prime

Minister had viewed with growing alarm the predicament

neighbouring Tonga has found itself, due to accepting

China’s money.

“Japan, the current

chair of the

Comprehensive and

Progressive Agreement

for the Trans-Pacific

Partnership, has

signalled support for

Taiwan’s bid to enter the

arrangement.”

These developments stand in stark contrast to the bizarre

commentary by former Prime Minister Paul Keating at

the National Press Club recently. Mr Keating argued that

Australia had no interest in supporting Taiwan against

possible military aggression from China. This was the

same man who once said that ‘Asia is just a place you

fly over on your way to Europe.’ Nations like Australia

should always have an interest in defending democratic

states. Should countries like the US and the UK have no

interest in defending another nation of similar population

size to Taiwan, such as Australia if it were subject to

military aggression? There is also the important trading

relationship Australia has with the Republic of China.

In 1974, the then President of China, Deng Xiaoping, told

the United Nations that ‘if one day China . . . should play

the tyrant in the world, and everywhere subject others

to her bullying, aggression and exploitation, the people

of the world should . . . expose it, oppose it and work

together with the Chinese people to overthrow it.’ It’s a

statement of which his successor should be reminded.

This article was first published in the Spectator Australia.

Australian Polity 11

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