Australia’s ambassador to the United States, Kevin Rudd, warned in a speech that the global consequences of a war over Taiwan would be as great as the impact of World War IImaking the world “a radically different place.” …
«We would be foolish to ignore the growing clarity of China’s military signals, including the pattern of its most recent military exercises,” said Rudd, who twice served as Australia’s prime minister in the previous decade.
Whether China acts will depend on its perception of the strength of American deterrence, he said.
long conflict
China claims that democratically governed Taiwan is its own territory and has never renounced the use of force to bring the island under its control. Taiwan strongly opposes China’s sovereignty claims and says only the island’s people can decide its future.
The United States has expressed concern about Chinese military activity near Taiwan, even after the island’s presidential election and the inauguration of President Lai Ching-te last month. China has warned that the United States should not interfere in China’s affairs with Taiwan.
Taiwan and the United States They do not have an official diplomatic relationship, as Washington formally recognizes Beijing but is required by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself and is the island’s most important international backer.
Concern in Washington
The United States recognized that if China succeeded in annexing Taiwan, it would affect US credibility and have “a profound and potentially irreversible effect on the perceived reliability of US alliances around the world,” Rudd said.
United States, China and Taiwan They have a common interest in avoiding an open military confrontation about Taiwan’s future, said Rudd, a Chinese academic who was president of the Asia Society in New York until last year.
«The economic costs, the internal political impacts and the unknowable geostrategic consequences that such a war would generate would probably be of an order of magnitude that we have not seen since World War II,” he said.
“Whatever the outcome – an American victory, a Chinese victory, or a bloody stalemate – the world is likely to become a radically different place after such a war than it was before.”
