Scott Morrison hits back at former prime minister Paul Keating
Australia has to be “strong” in the Asia region to secure its interests and will not be “pushed around” by China, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has said.
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Australia has to be “strong” in the Asia region to secure its interests and will not be “pushed around” by China, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has said.
Taking aim at his Labor predecessor Paul Keating — who suggested China was too powerful for Australia to stand up to — Mr Morrison said the former prime minister’s position was “out of line”.
“We’ve taken a very strong position here in the Indo-Pacific and we’ve taken a very strong stance standing up for Australia’s interests, and we’ve worked closely with our allies and our partners right across the region, not just the United States but (also) Japan and India, and the many nations of ASEAN who we work closely with to make sure that we aren’t pushed around in this part of the world,” he said.
Mr Morrison said the government was seeing the situation in the region “clearly” and had invested more in Defence than at any other time since the Second World War.
“How we secure Australia’s interests in our part of the world, you have got to be strong,” he said.
“I think Australians get it. We want to have a positive relationship with countries like China and trade with them, but at the same time, we’re not going to get pushed around.”
KEATING ‘TALKING DOWN AUSTRALIA AGAIN’
Australia has “lost its way” on China, which does not pose a continuous threat and should be allowed to be “rude” because other superpowers were in the past, according to former prime minister Paul Keating.
In a sensational assessment of Beijing’s intentions which is at complete odds with national security experts, Mr Keating said Australia had no strategic interest in the preservation of Taiwan’s autonomy and should stay out of any conflict between the US and China over the issue.
“Taiwan is not a vital Australian interest,” he said.
The former Labor prime minister said the Australia, New Zealand and US (ANZUS) treaty “commits us to consult in the event of an attack on US forces, but not an attack by US forces”.
“Which means that Australia should not be drawn, in my view, into a military engagement over Taiwan – US-sponsored or otherwise,” he said.
Speaking at the National Press Club on Wednesday for the first time since he lost the prime ministership in 1996, Mr Keating downplayed China’s militarisation of the South China Sea and its refusal to respect fishing rights of neighbouring countries.
“Big countries are rude,” he said. “They do this stuff.”
Defence Minister Peter Dutton mocked Mr Keating’s outdated takes on China.
“Important speech today by former dear leader and Grand Appeaser Comrade Keating where he talks down Australia (yet again),” Mr Dutton wrote on Twitter.
Mr Keating also criticised Australia’s deal with the US and UK to acquire nuclear-powered submarines.
“Eight submarines against China in 20 years’ time will be like throwing a handful of toothpicks at the mountain,” he said.
Mr Keating said Australia must at least give China “respect”, pointing to the decision by Foreign Minister Marise Payne to call for an investigation into the origins of Covid-19, reportedly without a cabinet decision, as a move that “cost us hugely”.
Important speech today by former dear leader and Grand Appeaser Comrade Keating where he talks down Australia (yet again)🙄
— Peter Dutton (@PeterDutton_MP) November 10, 2021
“What the Chinese want, I think, is respect for what they’ve created,” Mr Keating said.
Asked about China’s treatment of the Uighur minority, Mr Keating said Australia should “always speak out on human rights” but questioned why there wasn’t similar outrage levelled at India when it suspended the autonomy of the Kashmir region.
Mr Keating claimed China’s ambitions were not one of “international ideology’ like the “old Soviet Union”, with Beijing instead wanting to sign up to the existing world order but “reformed so it is fair”.
Mr Keating said Australia and the US needed to accept China would play a major role in “East Asia and the Asian mainland” suggesting Beijing was a rising power in the “adolescent phase of their diplomacy”.
“They’ve got testosterone running everywhere, you know, but, but we have to deal with them, because their power will be so profoundly big in this part of the world,” he said.
Mr Keating said Australia should be looking to Indonesia, as a way of engaging in the region, rather than the “Quad” alliance with the US, India and Japan.
“The United States should be the guarantor and the leader in the West, it should in East Asia be the balancer and conciliator,” he said.
“In other words it is important to have American military power in East Asia to deal with any pushiness by other states including China.”
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