The federal government has doubled down on its diplomatic stoush with Beijing by calling for Taiwan to be readmitted to the World Health Assembly (WHA) — the decision-making body of the World Health Organisation (WHO) — as an observer, a status removed at Beijing’s behest four years ago.
But unlike the government’s quixotic call for a transparent, independent inquiry into the origins and early spread of COVID-19, this time it has chosen the right issue. Conversely it is one that will be at least as difficult to prosecute due to Beijing insistence that it has a right to control Taiwan.
It is timely too, as the COVID-19 crisis and Taiwan’s world-standard response (currently 439 infections and 6 deaths), has triggered a long overdue revaluation of Taiwan internationally. It is here that Australia can and should play a key role.
Beijing has already pushed back hard on calls for an open inquiry into the origins of COVID-19.
For a taste of just how the Chinese Communist Party plays hardball, look no further than its internal crackdown on whistleblowers, including the suppression of medical experts who belled the cat on the disease in January.
At least one early whistleblower detained and released has since died of the virus. Authorities have made it clear they are determined to maintain control of information on the genesis of the virus, persecuting anyone who differs from the official narrative.
While Australia has so far used megaphone diplomacy in vain attempts to get China to play ball on an inquiry, the move to bring Taiwan back to the WHA makes more strategic sense.
It’s a country with which Australia has long had a strong trading and investment relationship, as well as very close and mutually beneficial people-to-people ties.
Taiwan is officially known as the Republic of China (ROC), and Australia’s relationship, like most Western nations who happily trade with the country, is somewhat invidious.
Forced by Beijing to withdraw recognition from Taipei in 1972 in order to establish diplomatic relations with China, Australia — like its peers and all but a dozen nations in the world — has gone along with the fiction that Taiwan is not independent.
This is ignores that Taiwan has its own military and elects its own government. It’s a thriving developed county whose population, at 24 million, almost mirrors Australia’s.
Despite this, “… the Australian Government does not recognise the ROC as a sovereign state and does not regard the authorities in Taiwan as having the status of a national government,’’ states Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. “Dealings between Australian government officials and Taiwan, therefore, take place unofficially … Australia’s representative office in Taiwan does not have diplomatic status nor do Taiwan’s representative offices in Australia …”
The most immediate focus is the upcoming WHA annual meeting in May. when the WHO director-general reports on the WHO’s annual work. WHO has been widely condemned for kowtowing to China and even enabling the CCP’S campaign of misinformation.
Unlike Canberra’s calls for a COVID-19 inquiry, our WHA bid has strong backing from the United States. China of course is not happy at all, maintaining its official policy of “reunification” with Taiwan, even though mainland China has rarely controlled the island historically and the ruling Communist Party never has.
As China conducts its own misplaced megaphone diplomacy and economic threats, putting many nations offside, there has never been a better chance for a coalition building in favour of Taiwan.
China’s bigger picture on Taiwan is of course strategic, which is why the CCP has assiduously been blocking the Republic of China’s access to global forums for decades in a effort to isolate it.
This has not worked, however, with the US continuing to maintain a defence treaty with Taiwan, regularly supplying the country with strategic arms. Many observers think it’s now even more likely that the US would quickly come to the aid of the ROC should Beijing attempt to restart armed hostilities.
This week, a senior People Liberation Army figure spoke out about such murmurings in an unusually downbeat commentary that suggest a window of opportunity
“China’s ultimate goal is not the reunification of Taiwan but to achieve the dream of national rejuvenation — so that all 1.4 billion Chinese can have a good life,” Qiao Liang, a retired admiral and professor at the PLA National Defence University in Beijing, said in an interview May 4.
“Could it be achieved by taking Taiwan back? Of course not. So we shouldn’t make this the top priority. If Beijing wants to take Taiwan back by force, it will need to mobilise all its resources and power to do this,” he said. “You shouldn’t put all your eggs in one basket, it’s too costly.”
In a major break from Chinese tradition on the island, Qiao also said Taiwan was not just a domestic issue, admitting that Washington was involved in settling the dispute on the future of the territory.
Taiwan has now had a democratically elected president and legislature for 24 years since transitioning from a military dictatorship. It is one of a handful of properly functioning democracies in East and Southeast Asia.
It is in Australia’s interests to keep it that way, and the best way to do this is to keep Taiwan in the spotlight, especially amidst the overweening focus on COVID-19 to the exclusion of so much else.
Talking up Taiwan looks like actual foreign policy from Canberra, as distinct from simply shrieking unrealistic demands at closed-eared Beijing.
Factually wrong, and written with a pre-determined ideological position (like so many others).
Dr Li was not a whistleblower.
A copy of a ‘comment’ posted elsewhere in the Australian media, in response to a very similar misrepresentation;
“Many people still hang on to the notion Dr Li Wenliang (the ophthalmologist) was a whistleblower who tried to alert the public to a possible infection outbreak. He wasn’t a whistleblower – he told half a dozen mates on a chat network. Didn’t tell any medical authority, government agency, the hospital where he worked, or the public. The chat was ‘leaked’. And, he postulated it was SARS back, again – one of the reasons he was ‘reprimanded’ was because he ‘speculated’, and he speculated without having any evidence to support his contention (and, he was not even close to being qualified to opine about virology).
And, he came AFTER someone who was well qualified was already on the job. Dr Li had his chat on Dec 30..
Here’s what was happening prior to Dec 30, on Dec 30, and immediately after;
“The story of COVID-19 may begin with Dr. Zhang Jixian, director of the Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine of Hubei Province Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine. She was the first to bring attention to the outbreak.
On December 26, Dr. Zhang saw four patients at the hospital with flu-like symptoms, an elderly couple and their son, and a seller from the seafood market. The cases puzzled her, since tests ruled out the two severe types of influenza, SARS-CoV-1 (“SARS”) and other diagnoses. Dr. Zhang admitted and quarantined them because, she later explained, of her personal experience fighting the SARS outbreak in 2003.
On December 27, Dr. Zhang reported the cases to the hospital chief, Dr. Xia Wenguang, who then reported to the local Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Over the next two days, four more cases appeared.
On December 29, Dr. Xia discussed the cases with ten experts from various medical disciplines and reported to Hubei Province’s CDC, which began epidemiological research that very day.
On December 30, Hubei’s CDC reported to China’s national CDC.
On December 31, China informed the WHO of the mysterious cases of a “viral pneumonia of unknown origin.”
On January 3, the new virus was identified, and within a week, Chinese scientists had sequenced the genome and shared the data with the world…..”
That is all corroborated, documented, and ‘on the record’.
mintpressnewsdotcom/truth-about-china-covid-19-response/267006/ ”
And, on Taiwan, Chinese authorities and the WHO provided Taiwan with the exact same warnings and other information, as every other nation, starting in very early January.
Nice work once again David. Keep it up please.
Michael, interesting diplomatic development but I wonder what the motivation is. The first thought is it’s to divert attention from the silly business last week of the call for an enquiry then getting left in the cold.
Second though, why make a big deal of Taiwan now and how does Taiwan feel about it ? Its possible that we’ve just put our foot in another pile of it. Taiwan might wish we’d leave them alone and fix up the mess of our own making by ourselves. Maybe they can do without being rescued by diplomatic neophytes.
Mark, this is blindlingly simple – Sainsbury derives his earn from inside the ‘swamp’, and people like me are more concerned with how much danger the ordinary sods face because of Sainsbury and Co’s abject surrender to complete tripe, in the service of completely rubbish ’empire’.
People like Sainsbury need a damn good slap, because they peddle mass disinformation, which results in everyone else taking on risks about which they don’t, generally, have the foggiest idea.
The Yank led West cannot win a major military yike with the Chinamen.
They’re even less chance to win a major yike with the Russians.
Why, in either case? Because neither the Chinamen, nor the Russians, spend trillions of dollars to ATTACK anyone, they merely structure themselves to first, and foremost, ‘defend the home counties’.
We in the West are forever imbued with the notions of ‘white European smarts supremacy’.
It’s delusional nonsense! Where did maths begin? Why does the US of A have to beg the Russians to make the rockets that launch their ‘space missions’? Why does every last war game run by the US of A result in them being handed their a**e by the Russians, or Chinese? Russia AND China?!?! (Cos, that’s where this ‘great global conflict’ has got to – Vlad and Xi in strategic lockstep).
I truly despair at the stupidity in charge of this nation. We’re stuffed.
Unless Australia has some amazing little-known intention, “reign in” under the headline should be “rein in”.
snap
you beat me by a whisker
An Australian government scrambling to “reign” in China.
10/10 for ambition Scotty!
(Come on sub-eds, lift your game.)
Hard to understand the Morrison call. Maybe a call for a review of – what was done well and what can be improved by the world – by an international group of experts ( incl China) would have been much more productive – in results and politically. The timing all appeared wrong as well.
Hard to understand the Morrison call. Maybe a call for a review of – what was done well and what can be improved by the world – by an international group of experts ( incl China) would have been much more productive – in results and politically. The timing all appeared wrong as well.
Not at all hard to understand SchloMo’s call, Bill. He’s a vassal and a vessel. His ‘beliefs’ place him slap bang in line with the likes of Pence and Pompeo – e.g. ‘The Rapture’.
He’s an evangelical/pentacostal ratbag, and will always be so. He ‘believes’ in the provenance of the exact same rubbish as the ‘Rapture Rubbish’ peddled by the 2P’s in America (in a pod).
These are extraordinarily dangerous people; they actually don’t give a flying f*** who survives the collapse of civilisation – they reckon it’s preordained.
I read and listen, a lot – the Russians and Chinese, love ’em., or hate ’em, have a grasp of the contemporary reality that goes way beyond the infantile nonsense that’s continually dished up to us as ‘imperative’.
Truth is, far smarter ‘forces’ than you’ll find anywhere locally have been defining the development of the ‘multipolar world’ for years.
It began, demonstrably, in 2007 in Munich, when Vladimir Putin stood in front of the ‘Munich Security Conference’, and said so.
In the front row, immediately next to the stage sat one John McCain, metres from Putin. McCain sneered, and Putin completely ‘fresh aired’ the ol’ war criminal – completely ignored him.
Simple fact is, there are 2 countries now run by vastly superior intellects, and neither of them operate under the Yank empire.
And, despite centuries of open nationalistic hostilities, both of these fellas know the future lies with a multipolar world.
And, those 2 fellas would be Vladimir V. Putin, and Xi Jinping.
Get used to it.