In explosive comments published in
chinese tabloid the global times on
saturday Editor-In-Chief Who Zijin was
blunt in his analysis of australia's
promise to come to taiwan's age should
u.s allied forces get involved in the
conflict. If australian troops come to
fight in the taiwan straits it is
unimaginable that china won't carry out
a heavy attack on them and the
australian military facilities that
support them. Mr Zaigen tweeted
so australia had better be prepared to
sacrifice for taiwan island in the u.s.
The ominous words are believed to be
connected to comments made by
australia's defense minister Peter Dutton on friday, where he intimated Aussie troops would step in and help the
us if taiwan was attacked by the global
superpower. In the eyes of mr dutton the move would
leave australia in a global position of
strength.
China's been very clear about their
intent to go into taiwan and we need to
make sure that there is a high level of
preparedness, a greater sense of
deterrence by our capability and that is
how i think we put our country in a
position of strength, he told the
australian. It would be inconceivable that we
wouldn't support the us in an action if
the u.s chose to take that action, he added.
Professor Peter dean chair of defense
studies and director of UWS's defense
and security institute told Daily Mail Australia in october war was a real
possibility in the region within five or
six years. You certainly can't rule out the
potential for the use of force. If the chinese get to the point where
they think they can take taiwan by force, win and be successful and they think
either that us resolve is lacking or
won't be enough, they could be encouraged
to risk something really stupid.
He said
we've seen them be much more risky in
recent years under Xi Jinping as he's
become more authoritarian. But professor Dean said it is the
current so-called gray zone warfare with
china signaling its stance over taiwan's
air defense identification zone that posed the greatest current risk to
world security.
What the chinese are really risking here
is an incident that comes about by
accident or someone gets trigger happy. He said
the real risk in the region is we don't
have any proper formal mechanisms for
de-escalating these things. the chinese are being very adventurous
very coercive and really raising the
levels of risk to levels they really
shouldn't be doing.
The chinese communist party has claimed
taiwan ever since it was established as
the republic of china by the nationalist Kuomintang under Chiang Kai-Shek in 1949 after they fled mainland china during
its civil war. The republic of china views itself as an
autonomous country while china sees it
as a breakaway province.
