A choice remark: “We’re now defending the fact that we’re in Aukus.
“If we weren’t in Aukus, we wouldn’t need to defend it. If we didn’t have an aggressive ally like the United States – aggressive to others in the region – there’d be nobody attacking Australia. We are better left alone than we are being ‘protected’ by an aggressive power like the United States.
“Australia is capable of defending itself.
“There’s no way another state can invade a country like Australia with an armada of ships without it all failing. I mean, Australia is quite capable of defending itself. We don’t need to be basically a pair of shoes hanging out of the Americans’ backside.”
To be clear: their situation today is not horrible at all. It’s totally fine. It will only become horrible if a foreign country invades their home.
Again, comparing the idea of China invading Taiwan to situations like Sadam Hussain is a mistake. Because we’re not talking about one country interfering in another country’s internal issues. We’re talking about one country providing a degree of protection to another against a third country invading them. Defensive military aid is a completely different question to invading a country for its internal practices, even if those internal practices are tyrannical. We’re talking about a hypothetical situation where war has broken out regardless, and it’s just a question of ensuring that the little guy doesn’t get totally overrun by a much bigger country.
It’s great to talk about taking a peaceful attitude into the future. But I don’t see any way the region can be peaceful with the threat of China invading other countries’ territory. It’s bad enough today with them using their military to invade other countries’ waters deep in the southern South China Sea. This isn’t the USA, or Australia as a proxy for the USA, being aggressive or upsetting peace. The peace is being upset by China.
Any discussion about Taiwan that doesn’t fundamentally start from the premise that it is an independent country and its people have the right to self-determination is not one to be taken seriously. Because it’s either in bad faith or a level of ignorance that makes it impossible to take any conclusions seriously. And that’s not what I see from people like Keating who talk about friendly relations with China without acknowledging the very real possibility that China trying to invade Taiwan is a completely unacceptable action. And his talk about how it should just be left for China to invade because it’s “not a vital Australian interest” is just nationalistic bullshit, putting the lives of Australians ahead of anyone else.