Andrew Bolt: Penny Wong‘s speech on China is dangerously stupid

Penny Wong has made a dangerously stupid speech which should make Australians very afraid if Labor were to win.

Penny Wong – our next foreign affairs minister if Labor wins the election – has given a dangerously stupid speech about how best to deal with China’s dictatorship.

Wong seems stung by the mad criticisms last week from former Labor prime minister Paul Keating, who accused her of being too hard on China, just like the Morrison government.

Talk about overcompensating.

On Tuesday, Wong decided to attack Defence Minister Peter Dutton for saying – shock! – he thought it “inconceivable” that Australia would not help the United States in any war with China to defend Taiwan. Technically we mightn’t, almost certainly we would.

Wong accused Dutton of “amping up war” with “febrile” language that was “wildly out of step with the strategy long adopted by Australia and our principal ally”.

But she is comparing Australian apples with American oranges.

Yes, America’s position is what Wong rightly called “strategic ambiguity” – not saying it would defend Taiwan if China invaded, not saying it wouldn’t.

Australian Senator Penny Wong. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

But there should be little ambiguity about Australia’s duty as an ally if the US found itself at war with the world’s most tyrannical superpower.

The reason is simple. China must realise that if it does trigger a war with America, America won’t be alone. It will have allies.

We must be one of them, because if America loses that war then God help us. China, a totalitarian power, will be our master. It will set the rules.

Wong actually knows the threat. When challenged by an expert in her audience, she admitted: “You are correct to assess that the threat of conflict is rising.”

She added: “Our job really is to ensure we create the disincentive collectively for conflict.”

Knock, knock. Earth to Wong. How better to create the “disincentive collectively for conflict” than to warn China that if it started a war with the US, it would also face US allies like us?

If Wong has a different position then let her say so clearly. Let her declare her “strategic ambiguity” – that we quite possibly won’t back the US in any war with China. It’s 50 50.

Tell that to the US, and ask if it will still send us the advanced weapons it’s promised, and come to our rescue if China attacks us instead.

No, Wong’s speech was a fraud. I doubt she meant what she said – but we’re in trouble if she did, because she’ll have given China one less reason to fear a war that threatens our freedom.