'Most Dangerous Election Tactic': Australian Opposition Leader Denounces Canberra's Taiwan Policy

© AP Photo / Ng Han GuanSupporters of Taiwan's 2020 presidential election candidate for the KMT, or Nationalist Party, Han Kuo-yu pass along a giant Taiwanese flag for the start of a campaign rally in southern Taiwan's Kaohsiung city on Friday, Jan 10, 2020
Supporters of Taiwan's 2020 presidential election candidate for the KMT, or Nationalist Party, Han Kuo-yu pass along a giant Taiwanese flag for the start of a campaign rally in southern Taiwan's Kaohsiung city on Friday, Jan 10, 2020 - Sputnik International, 1920, 23.11.2021
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A war of words erupted between China and Australia after Defence Minister Peter Dutton said that Canberra will support the US against China's move to reunify with Taiwan.
Australia's opposition leader in the Senate and shadow Foreign Minister Penny Wong launched a scathing attack against the Scott Morrison government on Tuesday, accusing it of amping up the prospect of war against China for political gains.
The Labor Senator termed the tactic as the "most dangerous" in Australian history, with the consequences potentially "catastrophic for humanity".

"This is the worst in a litany of cases of the Morrison-Joyce government seeking to use foreign policy and national security for political advantage," the senior senator said while delivering a speech at Australian National University on Tuesday.

Wong agreed that China has changed and the bilateral relationship has become harder to manage, but she said: "Desperately playing politics on China whenever he (Morrison) is in trouble does nothing to strengthen Morrison's authority with Australians or Beijing."
Targeting Defence Minister Peter Dutton, Wong said that he is "wildly out of step with the strategy long adopted by Australia" when Dutton said it would be "inconceivable" for Canberra not to join the US in a potential war against China over Taiwan.
"Surely, the real question is not, as he suggests, whether we declare our intentions, but why the Defence Minister is amping up war, rather than working to maintain longstanding policy to preserve the status quo – as advocated by the Taiwanese leader, Tsai Ing-wen," she added.
Wong said that Dutton's formulation on Taiwan was "binary" as well as inflammatory as she reckoned countries in the region "don't want conflict, they want preservation of the status quo as the best way of maintaining peace and stability".
Hitting back at Wong during the question time, Dutton accused her of "folding" to China "in a fit of weakness".
The defence minister has accused Labor of trying to back away from the US alliance. He has repeated that it's "inconceivable" that Australia wouldn't join the US if there's a conflict over Taiwan.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison arrives at Haneda airport in Tokyo, Japan, November 17, 2020. - Sputnik International, 1920, 17.11.2021
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"When it comes to the defence of our country, I can assure you this weak leader of opposition, you do not deter an adversary and you don't maintain peace in our region from a position of weakness," Dutton said while mentioning a comment by China's acting ambassador to Australia Wang Xining, who compared Canberra to "a naughty guy" over the AUKUS nuclear submarine deal.
Dutton has called the Chinese diplomat's remarks "provocative, silly and funny".

On Monday, Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said that some Australian politicians have been hyping up the "China threat," and they are grossly interfering in China's domestic affairs and emboldening "Taiwan Independence" forces.

He said the situation surrounding the island has been escalating over the past several months as Beijing considers Taiwan as part of the mainland while the US and Europe, which officially stick to the One China Policy, support the territory's democratically elected government which vows to maintain its autonomous country status.
Taiwan has been governed independently from mainland China since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949.
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