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