March 13, 2022
CHINA should “learn the right lessons” from the world’s reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the chair of the federal parliament’s intelligence and security committee has said in a speech in London.
Liberal senator James Paterson has been visiting the US and UK as part of a bipartisan delegation receiving high-level security briefings.In a speech at the Henry Jackson Society – a foreign policy and national security think tank – Mr Paterson said China will be watching the situation in Europe closely as it decides its next steps when it comes to Taiwan.
“We must always put the self-determination of the Taiwanese people at the heart of any resolution to China’s ambition to unify with this liberal democracy of 23 million people,” Mr Paterson said.
“My hope is that China will learn the right lessons from Ukraine in relation to its ambitions in the Indo-Pacific … the world’s incredible resolve, and its extraordinary determination to enact a very high cost against Russia.”
Mr Paterson also said that China’s attempt to make Australia “a vassal state” failed.
“The Chinese government has made it very apparent that the price of normal relations and of ending their economic coercion campaign is that we fundamentally change who we are as a nation,” he said.
“The good news from Australia is that we can resist this. Not only has China’s campaign failed to achieve its principal objective of changing our domestic public policy settings,but our international trade has proven remarkably resilient.”
