We can’t rely on US leadership, says Tony Abbott

Australia must end decades of foreign policy complacency amid a looming emergency in Taiwan, the former PM says.

Former prime minister Tony Abbott. Picture: AAP

Tony Abbott says Australia must end decades of foreign policy complacency amid a “looming emergency” in Taiwan because the US can no longer be relied on for its global and regional ­leadership.

The former prime minister said Australia had for years “unwisely” left the heavy lifting to others and Australia now had to confront an “ominous problem, far worse than the Ukraine war”, if communist China were to take Taiwan.

In a speech to the Henry Jackson Society in London, Mr Abbott said: “The Chinese leadership thinks the democratic West is in terminal decline because 30 years of taking security and our prosperity for granted have left us economically, culturally, politically and even physically flabby.’’

He said he would like to think the militaries of the US, Australia and Japan were preparing for ­potential scenarios involving an attack by China on Taiwan.

As part of that, he suggested the three countries should be talking to the Taiwanese about how to resist, “with potential ­assistance, if it comes to that, from others”.

Mr Abbott said Canberra should be talking to Tokyo about far more frequent rotations of Australian ships and planes through bases in Japan.

Chinese nuclear-powered missile and attack submarines parade for Chairman Xi Jinping. Picture: Supplied

He also raised US training of Taiwanese troops, adding: “Continuing that and even intensifying that would be a sensible thing to do and send a clear signal to the Chinese government that Taiwan is not alone and friendless.”

Mr Abbott said if China took Taiwan, it would mean the end of the US alliance system and the end of the US-led global world order.

“China has to be convinced that no attack is worth it,” he said.

“China must be made to know that a strike on US bases would invite instant massive retaliations and an attack on Taiwan (would be) resisted not just by Taiwanese, but by US and its allies.

“What is needed is a rapid ­resurgence of the democracies’ military power, economic strength, cultural self-confidence … it is hard to see any of this being led from Washington.’’

He criticised the current US administration for being preoccupied “with correcting perceived racial injustice and combating what it calls the climate ­emergency”.

“This is even though there is a looming strategic emergency that could kill millions and impoverish billions far more surely, far more quickly than a couple of degrees of global warming a few decades hence,” he said.

“Should carbon emissions remain the world’s highest priority when it has the practical effect of making the democracies relatively weaker, and dictatorships relatively stronger?

“Where is the common sense? In Australia, for instance, we ­export coal to China and uranium to the world but refuse to use it ourselves.”

He said Japan should remove all restrictions on its defence forces, and India needed to hasten its emergence as the second democratic superpower.

He also called on Britain to ­increase naval deployments in the Indo-Pacific.

As for Australia, “we need to end our decades of strategic compliance because leaving the heavy lifting to others is both unworthy and unwise”.

Mr Abbott also said Russian President Vladimir Putin might “escalate to de-escalate” with the use of nuclear or chemical weapons if he is pushed into a corner in Ukraine.

At the moment, Mr Putin had neighbours living in fear, an impoverished and diminished Ukraine stuck in an endless war and western Europe hostage to energy blackmail.

“Best would be for the democracies to give the Ukrainians more powerful weapons they need to recover all their lost territory while warning Putin any use of nuclear weapons would mean the immediate admission of Ukraine to NATO and Western troops along the Dnipro (River in Ukraine),” Mr Abbott said.