Australia to Follow US Lead If China Invades Taiwan: Former Australian Defense Minister

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Australia will follow the U.S. lead in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, according to former Australian Defense Minister Kevin Andrews.

“Under the arrangements, we have with the United States, we’re very close to the United States. I’m sure if we were called upon by the United States to act, then we would do so,” Andrews told “China in Focus” on NTD, the sister media outlet of The Epoch Times.

“It’s almost unbelievable that we wouldn’t if we were called upon to do so,” Andrews told “China in Focus” on NTD, the sister media outlet of the Epoch Times.

Australia has really been close to America for well over a century, he said.

“The beginning of last century, the American Great White fleet was invited to Australia. And then, at the time of the Second World War, there was a call by the then Australian Prime Minister in our need to turn to America,” he said.

In his New Year’s message delivered via radio on Dec. 26, 1941, and published in the Melbourne Herald the next day, Labor Prime Minister John Curtin announced that: “Without any inhibitions of any kind, I make it quite clear that Australia looks to America, free of any pangs as to our traditional links or kinship with the United Kingdom.”

A file image of then Australian Defence Minister Kevin Andrews leaving after a guard of honor at India’s Defence Ministry in New Delhi on Sept. 2, 2015. Andrews was on an official three-day visit to India. (Prakash Singh/AFP via Getty Images)

Pacific Backyard

Andrews pointed out his concerns about Beijing’s presence in the Pacific, most notably the signing of a security pact with the Solomon Islands last year.

The pact would allow the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)—with the consent of the Solomon Islands—to dispatch police, troops, weapons, and even naval ships to “protect the safety of Chinese personnel and major projects in the Solomon Islands,” based on leaked pages from the document.

“This means that we potentially have an aggressive, hostile military force on our doorstep,” he said.

“If one goes back to the Second World War, it was the great aspiration of the Japanese fleet commander to actually control islands in the South Pacific, such as the Solomons, Samoa, Tonga, etc. If that was able to be achieved, you would effectively cut off supply lines from a very isolated Australia. Now what we have is China seeking to extend its influence into that very same region.”

Andrews gave examples of Chinese efforts to extend its influence in those mentioned Pacific nations, as well as Palau, Micronesia, and, importantly, Papua New Guinea, where Beijing was wanting to build a port, an effort rejected by the PNG government.

“This is very much a threat to Australia’s security, as I see it in our own backyard,” he said.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang shows the way to Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare, in Beijing, China, on Oct. 9, 2019. (Thomas Peter/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

Beijing’s efforts included Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s visit to a number of Pacific Island countries in June last year. But Wang was unable to gain consensus from 10 Pacific island nations for a sweeping regional pact on security and trade at the time, Reuters reported.

AUKUS

Andrews also spoke of the Australia-United Kingdom-United States (AUKUS) partnership, which will see a deepening of ties between the three nations by codifying several existing military partnerships and creating new ones. Notably, AUKUS will see Australia armed with nuclear-powered submarines—one of the few nations in the world to have such weapons—in a move to reshape the power balance in the region.

According to the former minister, joining AUKUS has helped Australia to fill a capability gap—the clearing of hurdles that have bedeviled the replacement of Australia’s aging submarine fleet for more than a decade.

The most important part of arrangements is the deployment of up to four U.S. Virginia-class submarines and one U.K. submarine to Australia from 2027, he said.

U.S. President Joe Biden (C) participates in a trilateral meeting with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak (R) and Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (L) during the AUKUS summit at Naval Base Point Loma in San Diego, Calif., on March 13, 2023. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)

To push back on Beijing’s aggression in the region, Andrews spoke of the importance of joint efforts among allies.

“So from my perspective, there’s not going to be just one multinational agreement, which relates to how we deal with these problems.

“There’ll be a whole number of agreements, AUKUS being just one of them, the QUAD being another, and then bilateral arrangements with other countries to ensure that we’re acting in concert, and we’re all acting in a way in which we will deter any action which would bring about actual conflict,” he said.

“No nation can withstand naked aggression from another. We have to join together to contain that aggression.”

Andrews served as Australia’s Minister for Defence from December 2014 to September 2015. As a member of the Liberal Party of Australia, he was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1991 and retired prior to the general elections of 2022. He held numerous ministerial appointments during that time.

Additional reporting by Daniel Y. Teng.