James Campbell: Opposition defence spokesman Angus Taylor has rewritten the Coalition’s policy on Taiwan

If Sussan Ley thought giving Angus Taylor defence was putting him somewhere he couldn’t cause trouble, she’s made a serious miscalculation.

This column was going to be about Albo in China – what we’ve got out of it and what it means for the future – but that was before Angus Taylor went on the ABC on Wednesday night and rewrote the Coalition’s policy on Taiwan.

All week Albo has been fending off questions about what we might or might not do in the event of things kicking off between the US and China over Taiwan.

These were prompted by reports Elbridge Colby, the current Under Secretary of Defense for Policy in the Trump Administration, has been pressing us as well as the Japanese to make clear what we would do in that eventuality.

Under Secretary of Defense for Policy in the Trump Administration Elbridge Colby. Picture: Getty

Albo’s response to the question has been to say we support the One China policy and the status quo.

In other words, dodging the question.

Back home the Opposition has been just as keen not to answer.

Not only that as Liberal frontbenchers James Paterson and Andrew Hastie – both longstanding China hawks – have been clear it’s not a question we should be expected to answer.

As Paterson told the ABC the US itself operates a policy of “strategic ambiguity” whereby it “doesn’t declare whether or not it would come to the aid of Taiwan in the event of an annexation attempt” and so “it wouldn’t be appropriate for the US government to ask Australia to do more than the United States is willing to do”.

Hastie was even blunter, saying given the US’s ambiguous position “they can’t expect their allies to be declaring their position hypothetically”.

So when Taylor was asked on Wednesday night “would the Coalition be prepared to give Donald Trump a guarantee that Australia would join the US in a war over Taiwan?” it was to be expected he too would avoid the question.

But instead we got this:

“Well, we need to have a joint commitment with the United States, regardless of who the president is about peace in our region, and that means the security of Taiwan and peace through strength and deterrence in the Taiwan Strait. This has to be a priority.

“Now, does that mean you can codify your response in every possible scenario? Well of course not, and no country can, but you can commit to those core principles that I’ve described, and this is exactly what the Prime Minister and the government should be doing. It’s what I’m sure America is looking for, some indication that we do have that commitment to peace through deterrence.”

Angus Taylor says we need to have a joint commitment with the United States rewrote the Coalition’s policy on Taiwan. Picture: Martin Ollman

Pressed if he meant we should give a pre-commitment to the United States to would take part in a war over Taiwan he went on: “I think I’ve been pretty clear in saying that you can’t codify for every possible scenario, but you can make principled commitments to the security of Taiwan, to peace through deterrence and capability in the Taiwan Strait and through working together.”

I’m quoting Taylor at length to avoid verballing him and to be fair he did add “you can’t codify all the scenarios as to how our conflict might unfold …. … the Americans, won’t do that, and nor can we”.

But there’s no escaping Taylor’s position which would seem to be that in conjunction with the US we should be giving some sort of explicit guarantee to Taiwan is neither the policy of Australian nor the American governments.

Which among things go to show that if Sussan Ley thought that in giving him defence she was putting Taylor somewhere he couldn’t cause trouble, she’s made a serious miscalculation.

Anyway, back to Albo in China.

The background to the PM’s return visit is of course the improved relations between the two countries which has involved backdowns on both government’s parts.

Anthony Albanese at The Great Wall of China. Picture: Joseph Olbrycht-Palmer

In China’s case this has meant an end to the campaign of economic bullying of Australia which had not only failed but had hurt the PRC’s relationship with other countries.

How have we backed down? Well in return for the bullying we’ve basically stopped criticising China in international forums.

We’ve also stopped talking about spying or the Chinese government’s continuing harassment of the Chinese diaspora in Australia.

We still raise things from time to time when they can’t be ignored as we did in February after commercial flights had to be diverted because of the Chinese Navy’s live-firing exercise.

But basically if we can avoid raising uncomfortable subjects with Beijing we will.

On this trip Albo raised the live-firing exercise with Xi Jinping and was basically told ‘thanks for that but we’re going to keep doing what we like’.

He also raised the case of the imprisoned Australian Yang Hengjun but there’s no sign his “calibrated advocacy” is going to bear fruit there any time soon.

On the plus side he hasn’t been insulted by being called a handsome boy, so that’s something.

Originally published as James Campbell: Opposition defence spokesman Angus Taylor has rewritten the Coalition’s policy on Taiwan