TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — “Taiwanese perspectives and experience are more important than ever,” according to former Prime Minister of Australia Malcolm Turnbull.

Turnbull is in Taiwan for the first time to attend the Center for Asia-Pacific Resilience and Innovation (CAPRI) 2023 Annual Forum on Monday (May 29). Taiwan News joined Turnbull before the forum and discussed a range of topics including the Australia-China relationship, Taiwan’s role in the region, political division in democratic countries, and Indo-Pacific security.

The Australia-China relationship and Taiwan

When Taiwan News asked Turnbull if he thought improvements in the Australia-China relationship would come at the expense of Australia's relationship with Taiwan, Turnbull said he did not. “The Australian Government under (Prime Minister) Albanese has not taken one backward step on matters of substance as far as China's concerned,” he said, but “what has changed is the rhetoric.”

Australia’s relationship with China has deteriorated significantly in recent years, and China has imposed harsh trade sanctions on imports of Australian goods as a result. Australia elected a new government in 2022 that signalled it wanted to reduce tensions with China and restore trade, a move which Turnbull has expressed support for.

“Albanese as PM and Penny Wong as Foreign Minister are much more measured in their language, but they're not taking a backward step on any of the alliance issues with the U.S. or the commitment to AUKUS or any of those things,” he said.

Turnbull said Australia’s change of government was an opportunity for Beijing to change the relationship without appearing to soften its stance. “(China) needed an exit ramp where they could change policy without being seen to have backed off,” he said.

Beijing’s economic coercion of Australia did not change the Australian Government's policy at all, Turnbull said, and it had the unintended effect of galvanizing democratic countries' resistance to Chinese coercion. He said that China has exacerbated anxieties from Western countries about its rise in power through “counterproductive” rhetoric and its admonishments of criticism.

Turnbull said that Xi missed the opportunity to show the world that he was a rational alternative to the former U.S. President. “Trump was flaky, erratic, he would threaten to tear up alliances,” he said.

“Xi Jinping would have been better advised to be the exact reverse of Trump, to be steady, calm, conciliatory. Whatever Donald (Trump) was doing, do the opposite,” he said.

Instead, China has engaged in ‘wolf-warrior’ diplomacy, which has undermined China's standing in Australia and brought democracies closer together, Turnbull added.

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese meet in Sydney on May 24 in a meeting that was supposed to include U.S. President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. (AP photo)

Indo-Pacific Security and the QUAD

U.S. President Joe Biden skipped a Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD) meeting set in May, instead returning to the U.S. to deal with domestic issues. The meeting would have seen the leaders of the U.S., Australia, Japan, and India meet in person to discuss security in the Indo-Pacific region, and its cancellation has led to concerns about U.S. commitment to the region.

“Almost everything that's been written about that in the media is ridiculous,” Turnbull said, adding that Biden’s absence was “overinterpreted." Biden ensuring the U.S. government functions is his top priority, Turnbull said.

Turnbull was Australian Prime Minister when QUAD meetings were raised to a leaders-level meeting and said suggestions that the QUAD would ever develop into an Indo-Pacific version of NATO were “absolute rubbish.” The relationships between the U.S. and Japan, the U.S. and Australia, and those countries’ relationships with India are all completely different, he said.

He said it is in Beijing’s interest to promote the idea that the QUAD will turn into a NATO-like alliance. “I'm very familiar with the history of the QUAD, but those people in the West who try to talk this up, particularly in America, it's really just playing into the hands of the propagandists in Beijing," said Turnbull.

Malcom Turnbull speaks at CAPRI's annual forum on Monday. (CNA photo)

Taiwan's democracy

When asked about Taiwan’s domestic politics, Turnbull declined to comment, but he did speak about partisanship in democratic systems. “I think bipartisanship is very important on matters of vital national interest, defense, and national security is clearly one,” he said.

Turnbull said Australians have great admiration for the people of Taiwan and said he would like to hear more from Taiwanese about what they want for their country's future. “Nobody, least of all me, would be going around trying to stir up conflict or create any greater tensions than what already exists,” he said, but he added that democracy and its future should be determined by the people of Taiwan.

Turnbull said that the level of collaboration, public trust in government, and effective health management in Taiwan during the pandemic has been striking. “This model for multilateral cooperation should be replicated worldwide,” he said.

According to Turnbull, “Rather than looking to the U.S. or Europe for cues, democratic leaders of the Asia Pacific must build a collaborative ecosystem that guards the peaceful relations that have enabled our region’s extraordinary economic growth over the last 59 years."

A Fox News flag flies next to a U.S. flag outside the network's headquarters in New York. (AP photo)

Political polarization and the media

The former Australian Prime Minister delivered the forum’s keynote address on Monday and spoke about democratic leadership amid increasing populism and political polarization. He said that the widespread misinformation about the 2020 U.S. presidential election should not be taken lightly.

“The fact that a majority of Republican voters believe that Donald Trump won the 2020 election is terrifying, and if you think that country's whole political origin story is based on an armed insurrection against a legitimate government, (that) is very troubling,” he said.

Turnbull is an outspoken critic of the U.S. media company Fox News and its founder Rupert Murdoch's influence over the media. Fox News agreed to pay nearly US$800 million (NT$245 billion) in April to avoid being taken to court for promoting the falsehood that U.S. President Joe Biden had not won the U.S. election.

“That was the context which enabled the January 6th attempted coup, assault, whatever you want to call it,” he said.

Turnbull said the events on January 6 are an example of what happens when the media is incentivized to make people angrier and drive division. “I refer to it as ‘angertainment.' Their model is to rile people up, and that's very dangerous,“ he added.

Taiwan Premier Chen Chien-jen, who also spoke at the forum, shakes hands with former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and CAPRI Executive Director Syaru Shirley Lin. (CNA photo)

Ukraine

Turnbull said that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine has, like the Xi Jinping government’s ‘wolf-warrior’ diplomacy, resulted in the opposite outcome of what was intended. “Putin's invasion of Ukraine has demonstrated the ineptitude of the Russian armed forces and united the West,” he said.

“It's resulted in the expansion of NATO. I mean, literally everything (Putin) wanted to achieve, he's got the reverse," he said.

“Putin now finds himself, effectively, a client of China,” Turnbull added. He said the lesson from Ukraine is straightforward: “Democracies must support each other.”

According to Turnbull, “The singular objective of the democracies in the Asia-Pacific is to ensure the strong will not do as they will, and that the big fish do not eat the little fish,” and the right of nations to determine their own destiny must never falter.