Kevin Rudd sounds alarm over Chinese invasion
Former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has spoken out about the chance of Taiwan being invaded by China and detailed several ways Australia can avoid “sleepwalking into war”, as reported by news.com.au.
Appearing on ABC’s 7.30 on Wednesday night, Mr Rudd said few in the West realised how much Chinese leader Xi Jinping wanted to gain control of Taiwan.
“It’s right up there next to Xi Jinping’s desire for the party to remain in power and for him to be the predominant leader within the Communist Party of China,” he said.
Mr Rudd said there were only two things preventing China from invading Taiwan: questions of militaristic dominance and the risk of being slapped with similar sanctions to Russia following the invasion of Ukraine.
“There has been a little too much excited commentary in the West about how China will seize on this strategic opportunity to move on Taiwan. I don’t think that’s the case,” Mr Rudd said.
However, the former PM did note that the dynamic could shift if the balance of both military and economic power “continues to change in China’s favour”.
He added that an invasion of Taiwan would likely be amphibious, unlike Russia’s land-based “blitzkrieg” invasion of Ukraine, and that war game modelling conducted by the US suggests that China would come out on top by just a thin margin.
“In most of the war gaming which has been done so far - and these are desktop exercises by and large - if you look at what various US officials have said off the record and partly reported in the American media, the Chinese at this stage win most of the time,” Mr Rudd said.
He said recent events meant the situation was being watched very closely by all parties, and that a potential invasion would depend on what the Taiwanese and US does next.
“Taiwanese, for the first time in a very long time, I think, are now readdressing their national defence idea needs and I think they will be looking very carefully at the fight which the Ukrainians have put up against Russia,” he said.
“I think it really does depend … on how much more the Taiwanese and the Americans do.”
Mr Rudd said Australia’s role should be to encourage the US and other allies towards deterring any invasion, and that working with allies in Japan, South Korea and India was crucial to avoid “sleepwalking into war”.
Image: Kevin Rudd (Facebook)