Opinion

Taiwan’s vote is a crack in the new axis of autocracy

Jiang Zemin told me that liberal democracy is not for China’s people. Taiwan has once again shown this to be nonsense.

Alexander DownerColumnist

Updated Jan 14, 2024 – 1.48pm, first published at 10.55am

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In the back of my mind, I can’t help but worry about the spreading of wars across the world and the interlinkages between them.

The results of the Taiwan presidential election and the necessary strike against Houthi targets in Yemen by American and British forces may seem totally unrelated events. On the face of it they are, but what links them together, along with the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, is what we might call the “axis of autocracies”.

Alexander Downer was Australia's longest serving foreign minister, from 1996 to 2007, and most recently Australian High Commissioner to the UK.