Tag Archive for: China

How the Chinese Communist Party is spreading lies in Solomon Islands

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The Chinese Communist Party is attempting to influence public discourse in Solomon Islands through coordinated information operations that spread false narratives and suppress information contradictory to the party’s message.

Since November 2021 when anti-Beijing riots broke out in the Solomons capital of Honiara, the CCP has used its media and disinformation capabilities to shape public perception in Solomon Islands of security issues and foreign partners. These messages—in alignment with the CCP’s regional objectives—have a strong focus on undermining the Solomons’ existing partnerships, namely with Australia and the US.

In the immediate aftermath of the Honiara riots, the CCP sought to blame Australia, the US and Taiwan for instigating the unrest. In the weeks that followed, CCP officials were also active in pushing a narrative that ‘foreign forces with ulterior motives’ were aiming to smear the relationship between Solomon Islands and China.

After the China – Solomon Islands security agreement was leaked in late March, the CCP pushed a narrative that Australia and the US were interfering in the Solomons’ affairs; were ‘colonialist’, ‘threatening’ and ‘bullying’; and had no genuine interest in supporting the country’s development. Although this narrative wasn’t exclusively used after the security agreement was leaked, the frequency of these accusations in Chinese party-state media and official statements increased dramatically.

Some of the CCP’s messaging occurs through routine diplomatic engagement, but there’s also a coordinated effort to influence the population by amplifying the messages of particular individuals and pro-CCP content across a broad spectrum of information channels. That spectrum includes party-state media, CCP official–led publications and statements in local and social media, and official party-state Facebook groups.

There’s now growing evidence to suggest that CCP officials are actively attempting to suppress information that doesn’t align with the party-state’s narratives across the Pacific islands through the coercion of local journalists and media institutions as part of the CCP’s larger information operations.

A new ASPI report, released today, examines the level of activity and effectiveness of each of these channels of influence in the Solomon Islands information environment. This includes quantitatively measuring the degree of online penetration in social media, the level of engagement generated through online commentary, and the effectiveness in swaying public attitudes through sentiment analysis of Facebook commentary.

In doing so, we have established a baseline understanding of the CCP’s activities and influence in Solomon Islands. This aids in identifying the channels of influence that are of most concern and also enables us to detect and warn against shifts in activity levels or effectiveness across channels of influence over time.

The results varied greatly across the channels of influence. Party-state media, although useful for identifying narratives pushed by the CCP, had little impact on and penetration into the Solomon Islands online information environment. These articles, produced at a rate of one every two days, were rarely shared online and received mostly negative responses about China. Likewise, Chinese embassy Facebook posts were also limited in their penetration and engagement.

The influence channel of most concern, identified as being the most effective in propagating CCP narratives online, was the publication of CCP official–led articles in local media. This included opinion pieces, press releases and locally produced articles that were almost entirely dependent on direct quotes from CCP officials. These publications came wrapped in the packaging of a trusted local media source and allowed the CCP to spread its message to a wider audience, resulting in greater penetration and engagement. The CCP was highly active in this area. In this case of the Honiara riots, CCP officials had almost as many statements published in local media discussing the cause of the riots as the Solomon Islands own government officials.

Our sentiment analysis of Facebook comments on these shared articles showed that the Solomon Islands online population was mostly negative towards Chinese influence and engagement. But, in the case studies examined, there was a trend of declining anti-China sentiment followed by an increase in either pro-China or anti-Western commentary. These changes in sentiment, although highly variable week-to-week, correlated with real-world attempts to influence the population—such as a message from China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi, or a media statement criticising the United States’ announced visit to Solomon Islands. The language used by the CCP is also repeated in the commentary by Solomon Islanders.

This report is only the beginning of our attempt to understand the size and effectiveness of CCP information operations and influence in the Pacific. The CCP’s information operations in Solomon Islands are part of a broader effort to control the narrative and sway public opinion across the region, and further investigation into malign actors and activities impacting the Pacific islands’ information environment is needed. Support from the Australian government and international partners will be vital to improving understanding of the information environment in order to better combat misinformation, disinformation and propaganda.

The Australian government also needs to do more to coordinate with other foreign partners of Solomon Islands, including the US, New Zealand, Japan and the EU, to further assist local Pacific media outlets in hiring, training and retaining high-quality, professional journalists. A strong, more resilient media industry in Solomon Islands will be less vulnerable to disinformation and the pressures that may be exerted on it by local CCP officials.

A shift to Asia won’t solve Russia’s economic woes

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Russian President Vladimir Putin sought this month to contrast the vibrant economies of Asia with the decadence of the West, signalling that Russia’s future lay with the East.

The economic and political dominance of the United States was waning, he told an economic forum in Vladivostok, and the Western elites were blind to the ‘irreversible, or should I say tectonic shifts’ in international relations as emerging nations, led by the Asia–Pacific, played a much bigger role.

‘Asia–Pacific countries emerged as new centres of economic and technological growth, attracting human resources, capital and manufacturing.’

He cited International Monetary Fund estimates showing that Asia’s share of the world economy would rise from the 37% it held in 2015 to 47% by 2027.

He contrasted the Asia–Pacific’s average growth over the past decade of 5% with the United States’ growth of 2% and the European Union’s 1.2%.

He didn’t mention Russia’s average growth of 0.9% over that period, or the IMF’s forecast that the country’s share of the global economy will shrink from a high of 3.5% in 2013 to 2.3% by 2027.

While Russia straddles both the east and the west of the Eurasian landmass, 80% of its population and nearly all its manufacturing lie west of the Urals in the European zone.

Figures from 2020 show that Europe accounted for 50% of Russia’s imports and 50% of its exports, while the Asian share was 42% for trade in both directions. Collectively, those sanctioning Russia, including the EU, the US, Japan and South Korea, account for 60% of Russia’s pre-war trade.

Russia’s ‘forever friend’ in China, by contrast, accounted for about 15% of Russia’s exports and 23% of its imports.

Putin is right to point to the dynamism of Asian economies, particularly China and the ASEAN group; however, much of the growth in prosperity in the region has been generated by its integration into Western-controlled supply chains and is aimed at satisfying Western markets. Foreign affiliates accounted for more than a third of China’s exports in 2021, and the share is likely higher across the ASEAN nations. The West, particularly the US, remains the principal driver of transformative technological innovation.

It will take time to see how Russia’s trade evolves, but it has permanently damaged its most important markets. Europe and especially Germany will not again allow themselves to become dependent on Russia for energy and vulnerable to Russian economic sabotage.

Although Russia has reaped profits from soaring oil, gas and coal prices, the volume of its fossil fuel sales is down about 20%, with further falls in prospect as the EU imposes new sanctions.

OPEC provides an object lesson on the perils of using the supply of a commodity for geopolitical advantage.

On the eve of the 1973 embargo, the OPEC nations were producing 1,500 million tonnes of oil a year while the rest of the world’s output was 1,400 million tonnes. Within a decade, OPEC annual production had dropped to 850 million tonnes while the rest of the world’s output had soared to 2,000 million tonnes.

Russia’s oil and gas industry will not recover. Many of Russia’s most important fields have declining production and were looking at partnerships with major Western oil companies and service providers to introduce new technologies for lateral drilling to extend their lives. Those partnerships have now dissolved. Western technology would also be crucial for the construction of LNG plants capable of turning a meaningful share of the gas Russia used to pipe to Europe into liquids that could be shipped to global markets.

Although Russia already pipes gas to China and has another pipeline under construction, its capacity is only a small share of the gas it used to send to Europe.

Sanction regimes are never watertight, particularly for commodities that account for about two-thirds of Russia’s exports. Russia will continue to earn export revenue. However, the loss of access to Western technology will hobble the development of Russia’s more advanced industries over the medium term.

Putin declared that Russia was ‘coping well with the economic, financial and technological aggression of the West’, although he conceded that ‘sectors, regions and enterprises’ that depended on Europe either for supplies or as a market were facing some problems.

He described Western sanctions as an ‘aggressive attempt to impose models of behaviour on other countries, to deprive them of their sovereignty and subordinate them to their will’.

There have been claims that Western sanctions have met with little success as life goes on as usual in Moscow apart from a few Western shops having shut.

But Russia’s own public statistics show that the sanctions are cutting deep in some sectors. Motor vehicle production in the first half of the year was down 62%, while production of fridges was down 40% and washing machines 35%. Production of electric motors was down 36%, while fibre cables were down by 33%.

Most of the sectors with big falls are technology intensive, although there have been drops of at least 15% in the manufacture of an array of goods including cigarettes, knitted fabrics and plywood, which presumably reflect the difficulty of importing basic materials because of financial sanctions.

Russian airlines have been affected because of difficulties in maintenance. Domestic air travel was down 83% and air freight was down 70%.

Putin railed against the financial sanctions, saying that Russia was taking steps to reduce its reliance on ‘unreliable and compromised foreign currencies’. China has now agreed to settle its gas purchases from Russia half in yuan and half in roubles.

‘In an attempt to resist the course of history, Western countries are undermining the key pillars of the world economic system built over centuries. It is in front of our eyes that the dollar, euro and pound sterling have lost trust as currencies suitable for performing transactions, storing reserves and denominating assets,’ he said.

In reality, the value of the US dollar is soaring, and it remains on one side of around 90% of all international transactions. Its dominant role reflects the depth of its liquidity (transactions of any size can be completed without affecting the exchange rate) and the size of US capital markets. While Russia and China can settle their trade in whatever currency they wish, global businesses want to use US dollars to intermediate trade.

The combined force of sanctions, capital flight and export controls have not consigned Russia to ‘economic oblivion’, as claimed in a recent and overstated paper from academics at Yale University, but they will have a significant and long-lasting impact on Russian standards of living that no pivot to Asia can overcome.

China’s Gorbachev phobia

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There was a time when well-meaning, if not wishful-thinking, Westerners thought that ‘China’s Gorbachev’ was the highest compliment they could pay a Chinese leader who looked like a reformer. But when Zhu Rongji, the straight-talking mayor of Shanghai, visited the US in July 1990, and some Americans called him that, the future premier was not amused. ‘I am not China’s Gorbachev’, Zhu reportedly snapped. ‘I am China’s Zhu Rongji.’

We will never know what Zhu, widely admired for implementing key reforms in the 1990s and spearheading China’s successful efforts to join the World Trade Organization, really thought about Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, who died on 30 August. What we do know for certain is that, in the eyes of most leaders of the Chinese Communist Party, Gorbachev committed the unforgivable crime of causing the collapse of the Soviet Union.

At the most practical level, the CCP’s vilification of Gorbachev makes little sense. Sino-Soviet relations improved dramatically during his six-year reign. The collapse of the Soviet Union was also a geopolitical boon to China. The lethal threat from the north nearly disappeared overnight, while Central Asia, formerly part of the Soviet space, suddenly opened up, enabling China to project its power there. Most importantly, the end of the Cold War, for which Gorbachev deserves much credit, ushered in three decades of globalisation that made China’s economic rise possible.

The only plausible explanation for the CCP’s antipathy towards the former Soviet leader is its fear that what Gorbachev’s glasnost and perestroika accomplished in the former Soviet Union—the dissolution of a once-mighty one-party regime—might also happen in China. Chinese rulers do not share Russian President Vladimir Putin’s view that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a ‘major geopolitical catastrophe’ of the 20th century. To them, the fall of the USSR was a major ideological catastrophe that cast a shadow over their own future.

Evidence of the CCP’s lasting vicarious trauma is readily visible even today—more than three decades after Gorbachev sealed the fate of the Soviet empire. In late February, the party’s propagandists began to screen Historical Nihilism and the Dissolution of the Soviet Union, a 101-minute documentary that blamed the Soviet Communist Party for failing to enforce strict censorship, particularly regarding history and Western liberal ideas.

Still, the CCP’s obsession with the Soviet collapse seems odd, given the party’s three decades of undeniable success at avoiding a similar fate. The CCP’s most obvious achievement was to gain legitimacy by delivering ever-rising standards of living. It was no coincidence that less than two months after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the 87-year-old Deng Xiaoping rallied a demoralised party to restart stalled reforms and prioritise economic development over everything else.

Another less well-known, but no less important, success was the CCP’s effort to prevent a Gorbachev-like reformer from rising to the top and dismantling its rule from within. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the party took extreme care in vetting its future leaders. Only officials whose political loyalty was unimpeachable would be entrusted with power.

The party also scored an unexpected propaganda coup when much of the former Soviet Union descended into chaos and economic crisis in the 1990s. By playing up the suffering of ordinary Russians, the party crafted a persuasive message to the Chinese people: putting the economy ahead of democracy is the right path.

Yet, despite the CCP’s impressive achievements in the decades since the fall of the Soviet Union, it is still haunted by the legacy of Gorbachev. Some may argue that, as in all dictatorships, the party’s insecurity and paranoia have no cure. But China’s rulers have been determined to prove otherwise.

In the 1990s, the CCP’s top leadership commissioned a series of academic studies exploring the causes of the Soviet collapse. Participants in this intellectual effort included both well-respected scholars and party hacks. While they could agree on many less controversial factors, such as poor economic management, an unwinnable arms race with the United States, imperial overreach and ethno-nationalism in non-Russian republics, they argued fiercely over the role of Gorbachev.

The party hacks insisted that Gorbachev was primarily responsible for the Soviet collapse, because his ill-conceived reforms weakened the communist party’s grip on power. But scholars with genuine expertise regarding the Soviet Union countered that the fault rested with Gorbachev’s predecessors, particularly Leonid Brezhnev, who ruled the empire from 1964 to 1982. The political stagnation and economic malaise of the Brezhnev era left behind a regime too rotten to be reformed.

Today, judging by China’s official narrative of the Soviet collapse and enduring hostility towards Gorbachev, it’s obvious that the party hacks won the debate. But it is doubtful that China’s leaders have learned the right lesson from history.

Seeing the CCP’s external influence work through Beijing’s eyes

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The Chinese government’s aggression towards Taiwan has highlighted the range of powers and tools it wields. Alongside its show of military force, China has restricted trade with Taiwan, sought to promote its narrative on China–Taiwan–US relations, arrested at least one Taiwanese citizen, carried out cyberattacks against Taiwanese entities and cancelled engagements with the governments of the United States and Japan.

Many commentators have talked about these tools using familiar ideas like hybrid threats, grey-zone operations and information operations. But those concepts can be counterproductive unless policy and analysis are grounded in the ideas and structures that actually guide and organise them in Beijing. Understanding Beijing’s frameworks shows how much remains to be learned about how its external influence is interwoven with China’s international engagement. A failure to get on top of this will position policymakers to misinterpret and overlook key parts of China’s power and influence.

The recent history of awareness and research on the Chinese Communist Party’s external influence work shows why getting our concepts right is important. For years, China scholars such as Anne-Marie Brady, Feng Chongyi, John Fitzgerald, John Garnaut and Peter Mattis raised the alarm on the party’s efforts to influence, control and interfere in Chinese communities around the world. Much of this activity falls under the scope of the party’s ‘united front work’, the work of agencies seeking to co-opt and influence ‘representative figures’ and groups inside and outside China, with a particular focus on religious, ethnic minority and diaspora communities.

The tendency to try to fit this phenomenon under the umbrella of Western concepts of public diplomacy and soft power is part of what held governments back from understanding and responding to challenges posed by China’s united front work. Until recently, problems in diaspora communities seemed either trivial or unimportant to many governments, which only recently recognised how united front work harms social cohesion, undermines civil liberties and facilitates covert and clandestine operations.

United front work was misunderstood because it was often viewed as a form of public diplomacy, which is acceptable and practised by all governments. While united front work has superficial similarities to public diplomacy—it includes holding cultural events and open outreach to Chinese communities—its objectives, scope and covert aspects make it fundamentally different. For example, MI5 warned in January this year of an individual ‘seeking to covertly interfere in UK politics’ on behalf of the United Front Work Department.

‘United front work’ is now a household name, at least inside the world’s foreign-policy bubbles. An understanding of united front work was a key foundation for the initial Australian government response to foreign political interference. You can also find the term in records of parliamentary debates and even legislation. In February 2020, then US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo revealed that his time as CIA director taught him that the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries was ‘the public face of the Chinese Communist Party’s official foreign influence agency, the United Front Work Department’.

While united front work is no longer ignored, the convenience of simplifying diverse kinds of external influence work to accord with our familiar concepts has continued. This has distorted how united front work is understood. As the prominence of united front work as a concept has grown, some scholars, commentators and policymakers have gone too far in treating it as a synonym for foreign interference or influence. Pompeo’s speech was one example of this—the friendship association he named has little to do with the United Front Work Department— but his formulation was only symptomatic of the way such issues have been framed by experts.

Part of this confusion comes from the many meanings of united front work. In one sense, the term refers to a tradition of influence work from the Chinese Civil War, focused on co-opting influential figures who can work in alignment with the CCP’s interests. This tradition is relevant to much of the CCP’s influence work.

But if we’re interested in understanding the different structures, goals and methods of CCP external influence today, then a narrower definition might be more useful. When party officials and state media refer to ‘united front work’ now, they are generally talking about activities guided by top-level coordinating bodies for, and recently codified party regulations on, united front work. In contrast, while the CCP’s International Liaison Department was once part of the United Front Work Department, the 70 years since its founding have seen it develop such that its methods deserve study in their own right, as distinct from united front work.

Though united front work frequently involves foreign interference, equating the two can obscure the uniquely troubling features of united front work, as well as the importance of all the party’s other forms of external influence. Activities we might label as grey-zone tactics, malign influence or information operations cover several distinct kinds of work and bureaucratic systems that permeate China’s engagement with the outside world.

At the highest levels of the party-state bureaucracy, work is assigned to overlapping interagency ‘systems’ organised along functional lines. The united front work system is particularly important, but the work of China’s foreign affairs, propaganda, military and civilian security systems can also intersect with Western definitions of foreign interference.

External influence is a core part of their work, and understanding this helped Australia formulate its strategy to counter foreign interference. For example, Czech counterintelligence service BIS assessed in 2015 that China’s International Liaison Department, primarily part of the foreign affairs system, was involved in ‘intelligence activities’. Australian police have accused a Chinese community figure of working with the Ministry of State Security, a civilian security agency, as part of a plan to carry out foreign political interference. The liaison bureau of the People’s Liberation Army’s Political Work Department has sought to cultivate and befriend retired foreign generals, American China scholars and Australian elites.

Understanding the structure of CCP agencies and work systems is anything but an academic issue—it has profound policy implications. Each system and agency has its own traditions, platforms, methods and goals. Responding to and assessing their activities requires an understanding of the purpose, structure and networks of each of them. Lumping various phenomena together as ‘information operations’ or ‘hybrid threats’ is a poor foundation for governments and researchers, especially since governments can use these concepts to guide internal resourcing and funding decisions. It risks drawing attention away from the role of professional intelligence agencies such as the Ministry of State Security. It can gloss over the important ways these influence systems interact with each other, and the weaknesses in the different methods they employ.

It’s certainly not a lack of available material that keeps policymakers from being informed by the party’s own thinking. Many scholars have written about these kinds of external influence activities and how they are organised, although much more research remains to be done.

An extensive library of official Chinese documents and doctrines is available to us, and analysis can help piece together even covert activities. As two scholars from the US Air Force’s China Aerospace Studies Institute wrote earlier this year, what many call China’s ‘grey-zone operations’ has little basis in Chinese military writings. Working through authoritative sources allowed those analysts to explain how China’s concept of ‘peacetime employment of military force’ differs from ‘grey-zone operations’ in substantive ways. They point out that failing to appreciate China’s concept has led to a gap in our attention on a key part of the use-of-force spectrum: events short of a major war such as a Taiwan invasion but more forceful than the deadly June 2020 India–China border confrontation.

While we have PLA publications to help us understand these ideas, my forthcoming book on the Ministry of State Security’s influence operations seeks to demonstrate that careful scholarship also makes it possible to analyse the work and thinking of Chinese intelligence agencies. It also points to the fragmentary and incomplete state of our knowledge of CCP external influence. Arguably, research on China’s intelligence agencies has not advanced substantially in a decade.

Our own frameworks can be valuable for policymakers working on China—to the extent that they’re based on an understanding of the party’s own thinking. They’re important for communicating with the public and governments, especially when they have a legal basis or define the scope of government work. But confusing them for the party’s own guiding ideas introduces a barrier between policymakers and the actual activities they need to understand, a task only more pressing as China seeks to assert its influence on Taiwan and across the Pacific.

India’s window of opportunity to counter China’s influence in South Asia

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Political dynamics in South Asia have been garnering fresh attention this year. In Sri Lanka, a severe economic crisis led to widespread protests in April, followed by the departure of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in early July and a declaration of a state of emergency. Pakistan and Bangladesh have reached out to the International Monetary Fund for loans to help stabilise their depleting foreign exchange reserves.

Indian public discourse on events in Sri Lanka has prompted renewed attention on problematic Chinese loans as a cause of the region’s economic woes, emphasising New Delhi’s potential as the more reliable partner. The broader geopolitical focus on Indo-Pacific cooperative frameworks also pitches India as the dominant power in South Asia.

So, does the current crisis offer a window of opportunity for India to reassert its presence in South Asia? Both the question and the probable answers are complex.

Home to nearly two billion people and some of the world’s most dynamic economies, South Asia is critical to geopolitical considerations in the Indo-Pacific. South Asia’s maritime potential is of increasing importance to larger strategic constructs and has become an area of contestation between small and big powers alike. With the Belt and Road Initiative, China has gradually broadened its relationships in South Asia. But this, along with continuing acrimony on the India–China border, places Beijing in direct contest with New Delhi’s regional aspirations, expressed in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘neighbourhood first’ policy.

Launched with much fanfare in 2014, the policy has faltered, owing to the slow pace of economic projects, among other issues. Driven by the desire to reduce their dependence on India and to pursue independent foreign and economic policies, most of India’s South Asian neighbours (except Bhutan) joined the BRI. Pakistan was the first to sign on. A debilitating economic blockade by India in 2015 prompted Nepal to join in 2016, followed closely by Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, each seeking diversified economic prospects. Chinese projects are also attractive for South Asian states that see engagement with China as a hedge against traditional Indian dominance in the region.

India and China compete in South Asia to offer technical assistance and investments in infrastructure. The focus is on building connectivity via rail, road and sea to augment trade and security capabilities of small South Asian states.

Indian economic initiatives in Nepal, for instance, centre on connectivity and hydroelectric power projects. Managing the open India–Nepal border with the development of integrated border checkposts to aid the movement of goods and services is also critical. In Bangladesh, too, India’s lines of credit worth US$8 billion have contributed to several connectivity initiatives. Hybrid power projects, including wind farms, have been of interest to Sri Lanka, aided by Indian investments. Maritime cooperation and the development of coastal security infrastructure has been a focus for India’s cooperation with Maldives and Sri Lanka, which occupy a significant place in Modi’s Indian Ocean maritime strategy known as SAGAR (Security and Growth for All in the Region).

Chinese initiatives in South Asia have been along similar lines. While Pakistan has benefited significantly from its involvement in the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor, since 2015, China has stepped up its efforts in Nepal and Bangladesh. In 2018, China and Nepal agreed on the Trans-Himalayan Multi-Dimensional Transport Network to boost cross-border connectivity of railway, road and transmission lines. China granted Nepal access to several of its land and sea ports, particularly important given Nepal’s landlocked status. China is currently Bangladesh’s biggest trading partner and is reported to have invested an estimated US$9.75 billion in transportation projects in Bangladesh between 2009 and 2019. China has also emerged as Sri Lanka’s biggest trading partner and one of its largest creditors, accounting for about 10% of the country’s total foreign debt. Chinese funding was used to build roads, ports and airports. Sri Lanka and Bangladesh are also vital nodes in China’s Maritime Silk Road project.

To establish itself as the more reliable partner, India often asserts its cultural and historical links to South Asian states, with an emphasis on ‘common heritage and shared values’, or a ‘shared history’ in the case of Bangladesh. Covid-19 provided a further platform for India to outdo China’s efforts in the region. As China’s global reputation suffered at the height of the pandemic, India supplied crucial vaccines to South Asian states, except Pakistan, generating significant goodwill in the region.

There are, however, challenges to India’s neighbourhood policy. The cost of trading between India and South Asia remains high due to a lack of appropriate trade facilitation and logistical difficulties. Indian policy is often reactive to China’s rising influence, and policy mechanisms are insufficient to maintain a consistent level of engagement. For example, the inter-ministerial coordination group organised to promote relations between India and its neighbours met for the first time only this year. New Delhi has also ignored the recommendations of a bilateral report aimed at resolving tensions between India and Nepal.

India’s trust deficit in the region is another major impediment. Anti-India sentiment is common in South Asia, particularly in Nepal, Bangladesh and Maldives. Memories of India’s border blockades in Nepal and its interference in domestic political affairs in Nepal, Sri Lanka and Maldives are detrimental to the Indian case. The recent increase in religious polarisation and the revivalist nationalist ideas expressed in flippant statements by Indian political leaders have also fuelled worries in South Asian states.

So, I ask the question again, is this the right time for India to reassert its influence in South Asia? Yes, but not unless some of the structural problems are addressed. While South Asian neighbours are concerned about incurring large debts to Beijing, as in the cases of Pakistan and Sri Lanka, the historical baggage of being India’s ‘backyard’ makes them equally apprehensive of India’s dominance. The countries of the region play, to different degrees, the so-called China card against India—a trend that’s likely to continue, despite Indian efforts.

Burgeoning ties between Beijing and Ankara create an existential problem for the West

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It’s easy to attribute all the problems and changes in Turkey to the whims of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s strongman largesse. His foreign-policy adventurism has led to increasing regional and international isolation and a transactional relationship with foreign partners, including NATO and the EU. In addition, loyalists and patronage networks have embedded themselves in think tanks, businesses and the foreign-policy bureaucracy. Turkey’s foreign policy these days is mainly about maintaining power at a growing economic and political cost to Turkish citizens.

Turkish foreign policy mandarins, however, have watched the changes in the past few years and are aware that the international order is shifting. The isolationist rhetoric of ‘America first’, combined with US domestic political apprehension towards further military engagement in the Middle East, has put constraints on fixing the ongoing problems in the US–Turkey alliance. The relationship has been deteriorating for quite some time and Turkey has sought support for its interests outside of its traditional Western-oriented relationships.

With a spiralling economy and low poll numbers for the ruling coalition, Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) has been searching for new partners to help it stave off economic disaster and the possible end of its 20-year tenure following elections scheduled for 2023.

As the global community focuses on the war in Ukraine, there’s another growing partnership of particular concern that should be viewed with caution: the increasing closeness between Beijing and Ankara.

China has entered into strategic partnerships with Saudi Arabia, Iran and other Gulf states. While most of Beijing’s engagement in the Middle East has centred on hydrocarbon resources, Turkey’s relationship with China is unique. China and Turkey find themselves among a growing bloc of authoritarian countries in the global order, and Beijing sees Ankara as an important player in changing the rules-based order given its influence and strategic position between the Mediterranean, Middle East and Eurasia.

China has played an integral part in Turkey’s foreign-policy vision for a while. Since the 2016 coup attempt in Turkey, its new executive presidential system and the Eurasianist tilt in Turkish foreign policy have allowed Ankara to deepen its economic, security and military relationship with Beijing. Chinese power presents a viable alternative for economic and political support for Turkey’s ambitions in the world, without the baggage that relations with Russia bring.

Turkey’s pursuit of ties with other regional power groupings that China plays a definitive part in, such as the BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, is one example of this tilt. These recalibrations signify the paradigm shifts within the Turkish political and foreign policy establishment over the two decades of AKP rule.

Closer relations with Turkey present China with an opportunity to effectively engage with and influence politics in the Middle East and to expand its influence and economic integration in the Mediterranean. Ties between Turkey and China can potentially affect Turkey’s relationships with the EU, NATO and the US more broadly, mainly because Turkey can use its relations with China as a balancer in what has become an increasingly transactional foreign policy with its traditional alliances.

NATO recently declared China a strategic priority given the systemic challenges China brings to the rules-based order, its confrontational stance towards Taiwan and its close ties with Russia. China responded by calling the NATO alliance a source of instability in the world and prone to Cold War thinking. Gaining leverage over Turkey gives China favourable circumstances to undermine the solidarity within NATO that has arisen with the Ukraine war. Turkey’s relations with Russia are a current example of this.

China doesn’t have the conditions attached to economic aid and human rights that are found in Turkey’s partnerships with the EU and US and so is very attractive to Erdogan for maintaining his authoritarian ‘new Turkey’. If Turkey were to embrace China, that could unhinge whatever leverage the EU, NATO and the US have on Turkey in human rights engagement, minority rights and stopping the rise of authoritarian politics in Turkey and the broader Middle East region.

Turkey has been a prominent voice of support for Uyghur rights throughout the world and was once a sanctuary for Uyghur dissidents from Xinjiang. As Turkey seeks economic benefits from China and gains an advantageous foothold with Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, activists are being deported and Turkey is no longer a haven.

The AKP could use Turkey’s position in the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation to champion Uyghur rights. Yet it has been reluctant to do so given the growing closeness between Ankara and Beijing. The AKP’s timidity means that the West loses one of the most prominent supporters of Uyghur rights in the Muslim world. Notwithstanding Albania’s contribution, this leaves countries like the US and Australia to continue to be vocal against China’s policies in Xinjiang.

Turkish opposition parties such as the Republican People’s Party and the Good Party have championed the Uyghur cause and could become a prominent voice against further Chinese integration if they were to win next year’s elections against Erdogan and the AKP.

Militarily, Turkey’s domestic arms industry is slowly replacing its need for NATO military hardware. Turkey’s endogenous Bayraktar TB2 drones have been critical in destroying Russian military hardware and have shifted the dynamics in the Ukraine conflict. Turkey may seek cheaper and more cost-effective military hardware or technology from China for its defence industry if relations with the US and NATO continue to deteriorate. Growing military and security ties between Ankara and Beijing have met challenges, and Chinese military equipment is still no match for US and NATO hardware.

Continued economic woes, unorthodox economic policy and terrible poll numbers could create the conditions for a change in government in 2023 in Turkey. Erdogan, however, will likely try to maintain power at all costs. Support from other authoritarian countries like Russia and China could ease the blowback from any election manipulation or chicanery. It’s unlikely that a change in government would undo the years of mistrust between Turkish policymakers and its traditional allies in NATO and the US. It will be difficult to bring Turkey entirely back into the Western fold. This makes it very likely that there will be further development and entrenchment of ties between Ankara and Beijing.

With NATO’s attention on the Russia–Ukraine conflict, and the EU and US dealing with their own authoritarian movements, the relationship between China and Turkey will likely fly under the radar. However, stronger ties between China and Turkey present a genuine and existential problem to Western cohesiveness in NATO, the EU’s stability, US power in the region and the balance of power in the Mediterranean. As China’s footprint grows in the Middle East and beyond, this developing relationship may become an issue sooner rather than later.

South Korea seeks closer strategic links with Australia

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Little noticed publicly in either Australia or South Korea, Seoul has taken steps in recent months that suggest intent to forge closer strategic links with Canberra. The trend has accelerated under Korea’s new administration and should be factored in to Australia’s defence strategic review as an opportunity to strengthen our regional security and economic relationships.

During the June NATO summit attended by President Yoon Seok-yeol (who met with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese), Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo reportedly said: ‘Our priorities in values and national interests are changing’ and ‘I am not convinced that we are going to be affected much by China’s complaints.’

China’s demands irk Korea. Recognising Chinese power, proximity and major trade and investment interests, Korea will think hard before offending it, evidenced by Yoon—clumsily—not meeting US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in person in Seoul following her visit to Taiwan. And Korea will also not formally join the Quad, although Seoul is positive towards both it and possible cooperation with AUKUS.

But China’s recent aggressive military exercising and demands to limit operations of a US THAAD anti-missile battery in Korea (which, on its deployment in 2016, provoked tough Chinese economic sanctions) will strengthen already high levels of anti-China sentiment in Korea. It may lead to toughening of Seoul’s Indo-Pacific policy and greater willingness to engage substantively with Western powers and others concerned by the risks in China’s actions.

Like Australia, Korea faces a darkening geoeconomic and strategic outlook. Policymakers in the new Yoon administration will be weighing:

  • renewed belligerence by North Korea, with resumption of nuclear testing considered imminent, perhaps aimed at development of tactical nuclear weapons
  • sharpened US–China strategic competition, with growing possibilities for miscalculation and pressures on Seoul to abandon its policy of ‘strategic ambiguity’
  • concerns that any military action in the region will disrupt Korea’s sea lines of communication and could cripple its economy
  • related concerns that a resumption of Chinese economic coercion could include China throttling exports of rare earths and other critical minerals to Korea’s critical semiconductor industry
  • fears that America’s (and Europe’s) preoccupation with the Ukraine war will weaken their attention to East Asian challenges, a view given more substance by Washington offering no new market access under its Indo-Pacific Economic Framework
  • widely shared worries about a return of Donald Trump—or a Trumpian figure—to the White House in 2024, again undermining confidence in Korea’s US alliance, and ‘America first’ policies that weaken the US commitment to a robust Indo-Pacific posture
  • Korea’s inability fully to surmount its historical differences with Japan, bolstered by Japanese frustrations with Korean policy, which continues to truncate critical trilateral US–Japan–Korea defence and intelligence cooperation.

In short, Korea, like Japan, feels increasingly vulnerable and faces multiple challenges to its interests. But Korea is not sitting idle. It is building its already significant defence manufacturing industry—now a major export earner—to encompass not only ground force equipment but space, cyber, longer-range ballistic missiles, ballistic missile submarines, drones, fighter aircraft and a light aircraft carrier.

These capabilities help address the growing North Korean nuclear and conventional threat, and in particular respond to the North’s apparent effort to develop a battlefield nuclear weapon, an indication that the North hasn’t given up ambitions to blackmail the South, if not force a reunification on the North’s terms.

And the defence build-up goes well beyond that, enabling Seoul to play a much larger regional security role. The posture involves development of means to project power well beyond the Korean peninsula and to enhance deterrence against a more assertive China, even if the US alliance weakens. Korea has a long historical memory.

So where does Australia fit in? Australia has been a key member of the United Nations Command for Korea since the Korean War, and although this commitment has been small, it has been consistent. After the central US role, Australia’s probably the most significant. It has provided the basis for annual exercising with both countries in South Korea and a window into contingency warfighting and evacuation planning.

Until now, though highly valued by the US, the Australian commitment hasn’t been similarly valued by the myopic Korean military. But, driven by Yoon’s initial foreign policy advisers who have strong links with Australia, and a deteriorating regional and global security outlook, this view may be changing.

Aside from the common interests of the two countries, Korea eyes a potential significant defence market. Korea’s Hanwha Defence is building K9 self-propelled howitzers for the Australian Army in Geelong, and is bidding for the major contract to replace the army’s infantry fighting vehicles with a vehicle designed to meet Australian conditions. If it wins the contract, defence links could become much stronger.

But Korea, short of key resources, is also looking to Australia for secure supplies of hydrogen as it transitions from a fossil-fuel-dependent economy and away from Australian-supplied coal and liquefied natural gas. Australian rare earths and critical minerals will help reduce Korea’s vulnerability if China reimposes economic sanctions on Korea.

Hence outgoing President Moon Jae-in’s unexpected visit to Australia at the end of his term last November to engage potential suppliers and investors, particularly for critical minerals. A big resources trade delegation quickly followed in March, and an Australia–Korea Business Council delegation, focused specifically on these priorities, was welcomed in Korea in June.

In turn, this was followed in July by a visit from Korea’s minister for defence acquisition, Eom Dongwhan, accompanied by a delegation from key defence manufacturers. Only three weeks later, in early August, Korea’s defence minister, Lee Jong-sup, visited both Canberra and Hanwha’s new Geelong plant, meeting with Australia’s defence minister, Richard Marles. These visits came early in the life of both new governments, indicating priority on both sides. The visits were not part of the routine structure of consultations between defence and foreign ministers, suggesting a wish to quickly build stronger defence links—and for Korea to promote its defence exports.

Australia’s defence strategic review should look closely at this pattern. Korea has a sophisticated defence industry, while its strategic priorities align increasingly closely with Australia’s. Until now, the opportunities in this new alignment have largely been overlooked—by both countries—but growing regional tensions suggest a rethink is timely.

What does India want from Russia?

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If there was a prize for the most quotable comment on international relations so far in 2022, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar would be in the running. Responding to criticism of his country’s neutral stance on the Russia–Ukraine war at a security forum in Slovakia in June, Jaishankar said that ‘Europe has to grow out of the mindset that Europe’s problems are the world’s problems, but the world’s problems are not Europe’s problems.’

Like most major crises, the war is shedding stark light on our era, and India’s response to it is particularly illuminating. India’s foreign policy does more than just exemplify how the conflict has intensified deglobalisation trends. It also highlights the paradox inherent in the country’s increasing emphasis on ‘strategic autonomy’ as the world fragments into rival power centres: the United States and its alliance system versus China and its major satellite, Russia. The essence of this paradox is that India’s quest for self-reliance—keeping its distance from the principals of ‘Cold War 2.0’ and seeking advantage from diverse relationships—entails multidimensional international engagement.

For example, European politicians painfully weaning their countries off imported Russian energy have criticised India for buying more Russian oil—after Western sanctions reduced its price by about a third relative to the world market price. Indian purchases of Russian crude increased to 1.1 million barrels per day (mbpd) by late July and now account for more than a fifth of Indian oil consumption, compared to just 2% last year.

The standard official Indian response is that, despite Europe’s extensive sanctions, the continent’s energy trade with Russia still dwarfs India’s. Its purchases of discounted Russian oil are not only cushioning the blow to itself as a poor energy-importing country, but also helping to prevent even more economic pain for Europe. If the 4.3 mbpd of crude oil that Russia sold to the West last year (or six mbpd including oil products) had no alternative markets like India, the world oil price would be even higher.

Recognising the importance of keeping Russian oil on the market, the G7 has now come up with an alternative sanctions strategy that could present India with its next big test. The West’s Plan A was to combine, by the end of 2022, a partial embargo on direct imports of Russian oil with an attempt to choke off Russian oil exports to third countries by leveraging Western (and especially British) dominance of the global marine insurance market.

Plan B is the so-called ‘price cap’ mechanism. This would allow Russia to continue exporting oil but set a maximum price just sufficient to cover its production costs, thereby depriving the Russian state of any war-financing rent.

When the price cap scheme was first officially aired at the G7 summit in June, several leaders, notably German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, publicly questioned its viability—especially regarding compliance by third-party buyers of Russian oil. Even if Russia agreed to the cap, who would get access to its deeply discounted oil, and who would pay the full market rate? Russia would be much more likely to simply reduce output, hoping to offset its losses with the resulting further price surge for whatever residual oil exports evaded the Western insurance net.

Either way, India will be in a pivotal position. While Russia’s opaque oil sales to China will continue regardless, India can look forward to various arbitrage opportunities. It will continue importing substantial quantities of Russian oil at ever cheaper prices. And in the event that such imports weakened Western measures to squeeze Russia’s oil rents, the US would be unlikely to threaten—much less impose—secondary sanctions on India.

After all, successive US administrations—under presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden—have refrained from using their legal powers under existing legislation to place secondary sanctions on India for continuing to buy Russian weapons. The reason for this is clear: a closer security partnership with India has become a vital part of America’s China policy. The Quad—an informal security grouping comprising the US, Japan, Australia and India—has emerged as a cornerstone of US Indo-Pacific strategy, and would not survive the US sanctioning one of its members.

Of course, the US–India security relationship is mutual, given the live Chinese threat to Indian territory along the Himalayan Line of Actual Control—as the deadly June 2020 border skirmish showed. But India’s fear of China also implies a strategic dimension to its ties with Russia that goes well beyond opportunistic oil and arms purchases. India has an interest in keeping Russia close and not allowing a monolithic and estranged Russia–China Eurasian axis to loom over the Indian subcontinent.

India is playing this multifaceted game adroitly. In defence procurement, it has acquired advanced Russian S-400 air-defence systems and agreed to extend until 2031 the licensed local production of Russian weapons. But it has also increased arms purchases from NATO members, notably France.

India has ample options for managing broader US sensitivities vis-à-vis Russia. Russia urgently needs to replace industrial inputs that it previously imported from the West. This could provide further opportunities for Indian exports, which are already a third higher than their pre-Covid-19 level, owing in part to the government’s Atmanirbhar Bharat (‘self-reliant India’) stimulus program for manufacturing. Increased Indian pharmaceutical and automotive exports to Russia need not involve military support of the kind that has already led the US to sanction various Chinese electronics manufacturers, as announced on 28 June.

India’s relations with Russia are part of its nuanced and multidimensional foreign policy. This approach means that the 75th anniversary of Indian independence will coincide with the country achieving significant—and advantageous—geopolitical autonomy.

Xi’s guns of August

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Much of the foreign-policy conversation in the United States over the past two weeks has centred on whether House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi ought to have visited Taiwan. Her backers point out that there was precedent for such a visit—a previous speaker and cabinet members had visited Taiwan—and that it is important for officials to underscore the US commitment to Taiwan in the face of increasing Chinese pressure. But critics argued that the trip was ill-timed, because Chinese President Xi Jinping would likely feel a need to respond, lest he appear weak heading into a critical party congress later this year. There were also worries that the visit might lead Xi to do more to support Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.

But the focus on Pelosi’s visit is misplaced. The important question is why China responded not just by denouncing the trip, but with import and export bans, cyberattacks and military exercises that represented a major escalation over anything it had previously done to punish and intimidate Taiwan.

None of this was inevitable. The Chinese leadership had options. It could have ignored or downplayed Pelosi’s visit. What we saw was a reaction—more accurately, an overreaction—of choice. The scale and complexity of the response indicates that it had long been planned, suggesting that if the Pelosi trip had not taken place, some other development would have been cited as a pretext to ‘justify’ China’s actions.

China’s increasingly fraught internal political and economic situation goes a long way towards explaining Xi’s reaction. His priority is to be appointed to an unprecedented third term as leader of the Chinese Communist Party, but the country’s economic performance, for decades the principal source of legitimacy for China’s leaders, can no longer be counted on as growth slows, unemployment rises and financial bubbles burst. Xi’s insistence on maintaining a zero-Covid-19 policy is also drawing criticism domestically and reducing economic growth.

Increasingly, it appears that Xi is turning to nationalism as a substitute. When it comes to generating popular support in China, nothing competes with asserting the mainland’s sovereignty over Taiwan.

China’s willingness to escalate tensions also reflects its growing comfort with risk and the poor state of relations with the US. Any hope in Beijing that ties might improve in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s presidency has been dashed by President Joe Biden’s administration, which has largely extended the China policy it inherited. Public recriminations are frequent and private dialogues are rare. Tariffs on imports from China remain in place. Xi thus likely concluded that he had little to lose in responding to Pelosi’s visit. His subsequent decision to cut off numerous dialogues with the US—including those on climate change and drug trafficking—demonstrates his comfort with deteriorating relations.

The danger is obvious. With China indicating that its military activities close to Taiwan are the new normal, there is greater risk of an accident that spirals out of control. Even more dangerous is that China will determine that ‘peaceful reunification’ is fading as a real option—in no small part because China alienated many Taiwanese when it violated its commitment to ‘one country, two systems’ after it regained control of Hong Kong. In such a scenario, China may decide that it must act militarily against Taiwan to bring an end to the democratic example Taiwan sets and to head off any perceived move towards independence.

So, what is to be done? Now that China has demonstrated its will and ability to use its increasingly capable military farther afield, deterrence must be re-established. This calls for strengthening Taiwan’s ability to resist any Chinese use of force, increasing US and Japanese military presence and coordination, and explicitly pledging to come to Taiwan’s defence if necessary. It will be important to demonstrate that the US and its partners are not so preoccupied with Russia that they are unable or unwilling to protect Taiwan.

Second, economic relations with China need to be recast. Taiwan and others in Asia, including Japan and South Korea, as well as countries in Europe, have grown so dependent on access to the Chinese market and imports from China that, in a crisis, sanctions might not be a viable policy tool. Even worse, China might be in a position to use economic leverage against others to influence their actions. The time has come to reduce the level of trade dependence on China.

The US also needs a sensible and disciplined Taiwan policy. It should continue to stand by its one-China policy, which for more than 40 years has finessed the ultimate relationship between the mainland and Taiwan. There is no place for unilateral action, be it aggression by the mainland or assertions of independence by Taiwan. Final status will be what it will be; what should matter from the US perspective is that it be determined peacefully and with the consent of the Taiwanese people.

A concerted effort to build a modern relationship between the US and China is also essential. It is diplomatic negligence, even malpractice, to allow the era’s most important bilateral relationship, which will go a long way towards defining this century’s geopolitics, to continue to drift. Establishing a private, high-level dialogue that addresses the most important regional and global issues, be they sources of friction or potential cooperation, should be a high priority. What should not be a high priority is attempting to transform China’s politics, which would prove impossible while poisoning the bilateral relationship.

Never allow a crisis to go to waste, the old saying goes. The current one over Taiwan is no exception. It is a wake-up call for Washington and Taipei, as well as for their strategic partners in Europe and Asia, and it should be heeded while there is still time and opportunity to do so.

What Australia must do next on Taiwan

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Whatever we make of the visit to Taiwan by US congressional leader Nancy Pelosi, one good thing to come out of it is that Australians have a much clearer sense of President Xi Jinping’s determination to take Taiwan by force.

Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Still, it’s probably better we get the message sooner rather than later.

Now that we have heard the warning, what can Australia do about it?

Australia’s formal responses to Beijing’s military reactions have been tightly constrained by the terms of our relations with China.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong expressed concern over Beijing’s disproportionate military response to what was, when all is said and done, a civilian initiative on Pelosi’s part.

Defence Minister Richard Marles pointed to China’s violation of the UN-sanctioned law of the sea and to Australia’s long-standing commitment to upholding freedom of navigation and commerce in the region.

Neither Wong nor Marles questioned China’s claim to the territories of Taiwan—the core claim underpinning Beijing’s determination to take the island by force.

This is because Australia recognised the Beijing government as the sole legitimate government of China in 1972, and as a condition of recognition declined to recognise Taiwan as a sovereign state.

Like all serious players, we keep our word. In mounting limited objections to China’s behaviour, Wong and Marles echoed the positions of the EU, the US and all members of the G7 that there has been no change in respective one-China policies or basic positions on Taiwan, despite Beijing’s claims to the contrary. We are sticking to our side of the bargain.

In the 1970s, those agreements focused on territory and said little about people. What do people in Taiwan want?

Surveys of Taiwanese show a pragmatic preference for retaining the status quo over seeking formal independence, because under the status quo people enjoy civil liberties, rule of law, political rights, economic autonomy and a way of life won through decades of strife and struggle on Taiwan.

Seeking formal independence would place those rights and liberties at risk, in face of Beijing’s threats of violent retaliation. But so would voluntary unification with the People’s Republic.

Beijing’s treatment of Hong Kong in 2020 shattered any remaining illusions over the fate of Taiwan under Beijing’s ‘one country, two systems’ model of inclusion. On Xi’s new model, the people of Taiwan would be ‘re-educated’—China’s ambassador to France revealed this week—in the style of Mao Zedong’s gulags or Xi’s mass internment camps.

Here’s the rub. The CCP says it is prepared to pay any price to fulfil its historical mission of unification with Taiwan, but the one price it won’t consider is the one it would cost to incorporate the territory peacefully: allow people in China to enjoy the same rights and liberties that people have in Taiwan.

The upshot is that in place of reforming his own country, Xi is preparing to take the island by force against the wishes of the people of Taiwan.

The message conveyed by his ballistic missiles is that Beijing could fly right over the heads of people on Taiwan and lay claim to their lands without giving them a passing thought.

In effect, China now seeks ‘vacant possession’ of the island, in the memorable phrase of journalist Rowan Callick, and Australia never signed on to that.

Australia did not sign on to a lot of things that China does as a matter of course in the new era of Xi.

We did not promise to remain silent on Tibet, where the Chinese Communist Party is working energetically to erase the languages, cultures, religion and identities of local communities to retain a stranglehold on their ancestral territories.

Australia never agreed to Beijing perpetrating cultural genocide against Uyghurs and other minorities to maintain its grip on their historical territories in Xinjiang.

We did not sign on to the crackdown in Hong Kong that put an end to rule of law, civil society and freedom of speech and assembly once Beijing decided to extend direct control over that territory as well.

In acknowledging Beijing’s one-China position, Australia never conceded Beijing’s right to coerce, corral and ‘re-educate’ the people of Taiwan. In Beijing’s eyes, territory comes before people, and that was never part of the deal.

There is much that can be done to help the people of Taiwan without breaking our word.

Canberra can accelerate negotiations on bilateral economic agreements with Taipei and support its inclusion in multilateral economic agreements. We can actively support its participation in international organisations, including key agencies of the World Health Organization.

Federal and state governments should give added encouragement to cultural and educational exchanges with Taiwan.

Australians can reach out to people in Taiwan through their church groups, and by way of community and business associations, trade unions and local governments, to reassure their counterparts in Taiwan that they are not alone in confronting intimidation and interference from the CCP.

Through travel and everyday communications, we can let the people of Taiwan know we have their backs.

Australians have as much reason to be wary of China’s communist government as people in Taiwan, because China’s communists have shown they don’t care about people anywhere—not in China, not in Taiwan and not in Australia.

That much we knew before Pelosi visited Taiwan.