Albanese’s successful Trump meeting makes fools of far more than Rudd
Across the spectrum of this strange tribe, doomsday predictions were tossed about like so many Big Mac wrappers on Air Force One.
The AUKUS submarine project was to be confirmed dead, said the people who have been calling for the scrapping of that defence project since it was unveiled in 2022.
Australia’s defence spending would have to be hiked to avoid the President’s ire, said the group that has been demanding a doubling of Australia’s defence budget for even longer.
The Prime Minister had to demonstrate he shared Trump’s assessment of China, said the crowd who have argued that the government’s “stabilisation” policy was untenable for as long as it had been in place, despite its evident success.
Not to be left out, there was the claim by the AFR’s American-obsessed foreign affairs columnist that there was one word Albanese hoped Trump would not utter in the Oval Office: “Taiwan”.
All up, a bevy of predictions and analysis that aged as well as the early 1990s trend to wear jeans backwards.
So after all the mass hysteria, what actually happened in the White House?
AUKUS was endorsed for the first time by the President. “There shouldn’t be any more clarifications because we’re just, we’re just going now full steam ahead,” said Trump.
Rather than telling off Australia over its defence spending (as so many self-appointed Australian Trump administration explainers had warned), Trump instead made excuses for Australia. “You can only do so much. I think they’ve been great,” he said.
And what of the claim that Canberra and Washington have profoundly different assessments of China? Or that Trump, a trade-obsessed leader who is trying to secure access to the Chinese market for America’s soybean farmers, would object to Australia exporting iron ore to China? Both were evidently of so little concern that Trump did not bring them up.
Despite all that, Trump still managed to prick the ears of many of our American watchers after he was asked by The Australian’s Geoff Chambers whether he thought AUKUS was a deterrent against Chinese aggression against Taiwan.
Trump’s answer poured cold water on a debate about Taiwan in Australia that has become cartoonish in recent years, no surprise as much of it has been noisily conducted by people who have spent little or no time working, living and in some cases even visiting Taiwan or China.
“I don’t think we’re going to need it. I think we’ll be just fine with China. China doesn’t want to do that,” said Trump.
“First of all, the US is the strongest military power in the world by far. It’s not even close. We have the best equipment,” he added. “I don’t see that at all with President Xi. I think we’re going to get along very well as it pertains to Taiwan and others. Now that doesn’t mean it’s not the apple of his eye, because probably it is. But I don’t see anything happening.”
That assessment, that a Chinese invasion on Taiwan is not imminent, is shared by most experts working on the US, China, Taiwan triangle. It is also shared by Taiwan’s government.
None of which is to claim that Beijing does not want to rule Taiwan. Of course it does, as Trump said himself. And no one should dismiss Beijing’s threats to go to war if Taipei was to formally declare independence.
But the evidence continues to suggest Xi Jinping’s strategy is to get control of Taiwan without fighting, while encouraging that process with the threat of the PLA’s ever growing might. Beijing’s efforts to split Taiwanese society are ceaseless – and not without signs of success.
At the weekend, Taiwan’s main opposition party, the “one China”-affirming Kuomintang (KMT) party, elected a new chairman, Cheng Li-wun. Beijing clearly has assessed she is a partner it can work with. Xi himself personally congratulated Cheng on her appointment, urging her to join him to “work together for a brighter future of the Chinese nation.”
In her reply, the new KMT chair said “people across the Strait are members of the same Chinese nation” and called for Beijing and Taipei to “strengthen cross-Strait exchanges and co-operation”. No one should misread any of that as a sign that Taiwanese voters are about to vote for Communist Party rule but it does underscore that Beijing has reason to believe it can bring Taiwan under its control in a manner short of war.
Let us all hope Beijing continues to have that view. The alternative is a war of inconceivable destruction.
The stakes are so high that claims Xi is preparing for an invasion in 2027 and, considerate man that he is, has given the world notice of the date he will do it should be laughed out of the room.
Of course, it makes perfect sense that Xi would use 2027, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Liberation Army, to motivate China’s corruption-plagued army, one that despite its increasingly potent capabilities is almost entirely without war-fighting experience. Similarly, it makes sense that Indo-Pacific-focused American defence officials have echoed that timeline as they jockey for funding in Washington and seek to make sure Xi continues to doubt his success in a military operation that could end the Communist Party’s rule.
Mercifully, the claim that China has publicly scheduled a war is an assertion in want of a lot more supporting facts.
As with so many supposed Trump surprises, his Taiwan comments were hardly novel. One year ago, on the cusp of his return to the White House, he was interviewed by the Wall Street Journal editorial board.
“Would you use military force against a blockade on Taiwan?” the WSJ team asked. “I wouldn’t have to because he respects me and he knows I’m f..king crazy,” Trump replied.
It is a widely held assessment in capitals across the region.
Since Trump’s return to the White House, many of Australia’s America watchers have put far too much weight on the words of his officials and not enough on the President’s.
Albanese’s day with Trump has made it clear that’s a lousy way to assess this administration. Our government, including our shabbily treated ambassador, Kevin Rudd, appears to see things with clearer eyes.
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