E&OE TRANSCRIPT
ABC RN BREAKFAST
11 AUGUST 2022
Patricia Karvelas
China's ambassador to Australia has issued a clear warning to Australia and other countries, Beijing is willing to use all necessary means to pursue its goal of reunification with Taiwan.
Xiao Qian
We are waiting for a peaceful unification and, but, we cannot - we can never rule out the option to use other means. So when necessary, when compelled, we are ready to use all necessary means. As to what does it mean by 'all necessary means', you can use your imagination.
Patricia Karvelas
That's China's ambassador to Australia, Xiao Qian, speaking to reporters at the National Press Club yesterday. Kevin Rudd is Australia's former prime minister and now President of global not-for-profit, the Asia Society. He joins us from New York. Kevin Rudd, welcome to Breakfast.
Kevin Rudd
Good to be on the program, Patricia.
Patricia Karvelas
The ambassador use some provocative language in yesterday's address. As well as what we just heard, he said Australia and other countries needed to take the One China principle seriously and handle the Taiwan question with caution. What's your view? What do you make of what he said?
Kevin Rudd
I've only seen part of it because I'm here in the United States but, for example, the quote that you just played on the programme about the Chinese being prepared to use all necessary means while preferring negotiation. This has been the standard Chinese position for the last 20 to 25 years. So I don't think we should regard the ambassador's statement as reflecting anything particularly new. In terms of his reaction to the Australian Government's statement, or joint statement with Japan and the United States, on the recent live-fire exercises around Taiwan, a number of which went into the Japanese exclusive economic zone, I can fully understand why the Australian Government joined that trilateral statement given the provocative nature of the live-firing and, in particular, the lodgement of some of those souls into Japan's EEZ.
Patricia Karvelas
The way that the ambassador framed this was certainly pretty chilling. He said that once Taiwan is reunited, not if, there would be a process for Taiwanese people to have, in his words, a correct understanding of China about the motherland. Does this suggest something like the re-education camps being run by Beijing in Xinjiang province?
Kevin Rudd
China is run by a Marxist-Leninist party and that's something I've been writing and saying for a very long time now. And I think it's important for Australians to get used to that idea. And secondly, under this Marxist-Leninist leader, Xi Jinping, for the first time he's indicated that reunification with Taiwan by whatever means should be achieved by the time the People's Republic of China celebrates its centennary, which is 2049. That means, if you like, even on the most generous timetables, we're on something of a 27-year slide into what I think is a very difficult set of strategic circumstances for Taiwan, for the United States, for China and for US allies in the region. I think when you go specifically to what China would then do within Taiwan, if it was to forcefully bring Taiwan back under Chinese sovereignty through a military invasion, I think it is inevitable that the Chinese would use domestically within Taiwan the sort of suppression tactics that they have used within the mainland after 1949, when they took over the rest of China, and more recently in, of course, Hong Kong. That is why all policy actions both by the United States and its allies should be directed towards maintaining the status quo over Taiwan. And that means enhancing Taiwan's long-term deterrence against a Chinese attack.
Patricia Karvelas
The ambassador says China will reunify Taiwan by any means necessary. You say 2049 is the sort of deadline, it's a 27 year slide. So this isn't hypothetical. There is you say a long lead potentially, but either way, we know it's very much on the cards. So where does this leave Australia?
Kevin Rudd
What concerns me most in terms of the timetable is, first of all, that Xi Jinping has put a timeline for the for the first time on it. His predecessors didn't do that. And while 2049 may seem remote to all your listeners this morning, the fact is, it's now within, quote, historic time, as opposed to off into the nevernever. Secondly, for Australia and US allies in the region and for the good people of Taiwan, my analysis and that of the institute which I head in the United States is very much along the lines that we are deeply concerned about the possibility of armed force being used in the late 20s and early 30s. That means when China believes that they'll have a bigger balance-of-power advantage against the US and Taiwan at that time, and furthermore, that China will have moved to a position of greater financial and economic resilience against the possibility then, of Russia-style sanctions being posed against it. So our analysis is: it is dangerous because now it's seemingly on an historical trajectory. In our view, the critical period is late 20s, early 30s, when Xi Jinping still hopes to be in power, rather than next week, next month, or even next year, but that does put all of us in the region into a new strategic environment which requires greater vigilance on the part of all of us.
Patricia Karvelas
So that new strategic vigilance because of the trajectory you've outlined, what should that look like?
Kevin Rudd
I think number one here is how do you militarily, financially and economically deter the mainland, the People's Republic of China, from considering actually pushing the button on a military invasion. So what does that mean in practice? It means first of all, for the United States, as the principal military supplier of Taiwan to work with the Taiwanese to increase their overall level of national resilience against the possibility of an attack. Look, for example, at Ukraine, what's now called the "porcupine defence" - that is making any sort of external invasion much more difficult than it seems on paper. Secondly, for the United States through its own national military efforts to begin to close the military gap which has opened up between itself and China in East Asia and the West Pacific more broadly. Both those things take time, but those are the essential factors which would cause the PLA, at the end of the day, to perhaps advise Xi Jinping that this is too militarily risky to undertake. That's the core factor at work here.
Patricia Karvelas
This speech, of course, comes just a week or so after the US Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan. The ambassador made it clear again that China viewed the stopover as inflammatory. China's consistent position has been that they are just responding to what they see as a breakage with the One China policy, which of course has been highly contested. Was the visit a mistake in your view?
Kevin Rudd
Here in the United States there's a whole range of analysis at work on this. The overall consensus in the analytical community is that Nancy Pelosi, as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, of course had the right to visit Taiwan. The real question as a practical one was whether it was wise at this time in particular, just a few months before the Communist Party's 20th party congress in October-November. And if you ask yourself this question, from a Taiwanese perspective, is Taiwan and its own national security better or worse after the Pelosi visit? The analytical consensus is that, on balance, it's worse because China has now been able to wargame effectively for the first time what an invasion would look like and therefore change the parameters for possible military actions against Taiwan and in the period ahead. And the other factor is this: if the United States has been wanting to stabilise its bilateral relationship with China, as opposed to normalise it, just stabilise it in order to prevent the risk of unanticipated or accidental crisis, conflict and war, did the Pelosi visit help on that score? Well, on balance, the argument would be no, it didn't. So yes, she had the right to visit. She's been a long standing human rights campaigner. But the bottom line, was it wise? No, because I think it's actually made the overall situation worse both for the Taiwanese and for the overall stability of the US-China relationship.
Patricia Karvelas
On the bilateral relationship between Australia and China, the ambassador made it clear the election of the Albanese government is a chance to reset and there's been much more engagement, ministerial meetings, of course, and the ambassador spoke of an emerging consensus. But the list is the same that China provides on what Australia needs to be doing for any potential meeting even between President Xi and Prime Minister Albanese. Should we now step up pressure on these issues? How do we how do we resolve this without capitulating?
Kevin Rudd
Well the bottom line is ambassadors from the People's Republic of China, not just in Australia but around the world, are often sent out with lists of demands. I personally think it's completely counterproductive in terms of China's own interests. And I think the Australian government has got the balance right in basically rejecting the notion of a list of demands and its inherent legitimacy. And secondly, basically ignoring it and just getting on with the business of quietly de-escalating the relationship which, if I look at the content of both what Prime Minister Albanese has said and Foreign Minister Wong, basically that's the tone and content of what they've been doing rather than responding, if you like, to the political bait of saying these 14 demands should they be met by next Thursday. They never will be, not by any democratically elected Australian Government. So frankly, our Chinese friends need simply to move on.
Patricia Karvelas
Just finally, we're going to be speaking to opposition leader Peter Dutton later in the programme and he says a frank and honest approach is better than what he calls appeasement. He says Australia needs to call out China's bullying behaviour. Is it time to to use really strong language like he suggests?
Kevin Rudd
Well, Mr Dutton is the architect of what I would describe as Australia's megaphone diplomacy towards Beijing. And has it solved any problems in terms of Australia's long-term relationship with China? Not really. It simply was aimed primarily as a piece of domestic political posturing on the part of Mr Dutton and the Liberal Party. But more fundamentally, the question is this: on the actual nature of his appeasement charge, for God's sake, this is the party which leased the Port of Darwin to China on a 99-year lease. This is the government which failed to put down a single rivet on a single boat in a submarine order which was agreed to by my government when I was last Prime Minister. On the appeasement and inaction front, Mr Dutton has multiple cases to answer rather than just wallowing around and the continued rhetoric of hairy-chestedness. It doesn't advance Australia's core national security interests one bit.
Patricia Karvelas
Thank you so much for joining us this morning.
Kevin Rudd
It's good to be with you.
Patricia Karvelas
Former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who is now president of global not-for-profit the Asia Society and you're listening to ABC RN Breakfast.