Paul Keating weighs on Australia’s place in China and Taiwan conflict

A former PM has weighed in on Australia’s deteriorating relationship with China and has said the time may have passed to save a nation from Beijing’s clutches.

Former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating has weighed in on Australia’s potential involvement in China’s ongoing dispute with Taiwan.

Beijing claims the democratic nation in the South China Sea as its own but Taiwan has never been under Communist rule and has been de facto independent since the mid 20th century.

Speaking at the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday, Mr Keating described Australia as simply a “stakeholder in a US-run system” and shot down the idea of wading into a conflict he believes is overall against the nation’s national security goals.

China was “simply too big and too central to be ostracised”.

He also warned his country’s government to avoid being antagonistic with its biggest trading partner, remaining adamant China did not represent as big of a threat to Australia as currently perceived.

“Taiwan is not a vital Australian interest. We have no alliance with Taipei, none. There is no document you can find,” he said.

“We do not recognise it as a sovereign state, right? And under ANZUS, ANZUS commits us to consult in the event of an attack on US forces, but not by US forces. Which means Australia should not be drawn in my view into a military engagement over Taiwan, US sponsored or otherwise.

“China doesn‘t want American naval forces influencing. It wants access out of its coast into the deeper waters of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific. That‘s what it’s about fundamentally.”

The former PM said the US should remain “the guarantor and the leader of the West” but play the role of a “balancer and consolidator” in the Asia region.

“In other words it is important to have American military power in East Asia to deal with any pushiness by other states including China, as a balancing and conciliating power,” he continued.

Former Prime Minister Paul Keating via video at the National Press Club. Paul Keating served as the 24th Prime Minister of Australia from 1991 to 1996. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Mr Keating said China’s power would soon have “no precedent”.

“China is now so big and is going to grow so large it’ll have no precedent in modern economic or social history and therefore,” he said.

“Our challenge is to have the United States remain as the balancing and conciliating power in Asia … and have it come to a point of accommodation where it acknowledges China’s pre-eminence in east Asia and the Asian mainland in which case we can start to move towards a sensible relationship again with China.

Self-ruled Taiwan has lived under the threat of a Chinese invasion since the two sides split at the end of a civil war in 1949.

“China is in the rude phase, they’re in the adolescent stage of their diplomacy, they’ve got testosterone running everywhere — but we have to deal with them because their power will be so profoundly big in this part of the world.”

Mr Keating also went on to tear strips off the Australian Government’s handling of the recent submarine debacle, declaring the eight proposed nuclear submarines will be like “throwing a handful of toothpicks at the mountain”. That is, according to the 77-year-old, when they “arrive in 20 years”.

Keating poked holes in Australia’s recent submarine debacle, declaring the vessels about as useful as ‘throwing toothpicks at a mountain’ in terms of dealing with a superpower as big as China.

The former PM’s rundown came a day after ASPI’s Executive Director Peter Jennings warned we now have a potential enemy in the form of the People’s Republic of China for the first time since WWII.

“That has the capacity to hit Australian targets with missiles and potentially other technology as well,” Mr Jennings told Sky News Australia.

“Now, for the first time in the Asia Pacific, we have a potential threat in the form of the People’s Republic, which is clearly wanting to dominate the region.

“And how it’s going to do that in terms of the military risks it presents to countries like Australia, which don’t support that objective, that’s going to require a rethinking of how we do defence policy.”

Originally published as Paul Keating weighs on Australia’s place in China and Taiwan conflict