Abbott’s real message to Taiwan: fight for yourself and do not expect substantial protection from the US and its allies
Hu Xijin
After his visit to the island of Taiwan, former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott published on The Australian newspaper on Sunday an edited version of a speech he delivered in the island. The article has a provocative headline “My message to Taiwan: get ready to fight.” It advocates that “the best way to avoid the war that no one wants is to be prepared to fight it,” and encourages Taiwan to turn itself into “an eastern Israel capable of inflicting massive and asymmetric damage on any invader.” He also said that “to the extent that there’s a Biden doctrine, post-Afghanistan, it’s that America helps those who help themselves. And, why not? Because no one could be expected to fight harder for Taiwan than you would be prepared to fight for yourselves.”
I do not know whether Abbott’s agitation will frustrate most of the people in the island of Taiwan because the message he conveyed is by no means encouraging. He actually wanted “Taiwan to fight for itself,” and not expect substantial protection from the US and its allies. To put it bluntly, Abbott actually asked Taiwan to “stand up and die” for Western interests and to act as cannon fodder on a war that the island is destined to lose in order to win praise from the West.
Abbott is so vicious. I just do not know if the people of Taiwan who listened to his speech are stupid enough to get blood boiled by his words. I think rational Taiwan people would tell him: It is better for you Australians prepare to fight. Australia can deploy most of its warships around the Chinese mainland and give young Australian soldiers “a worthy death defending democracy”.
The DPP authorities and the masters behind them are spreading the argument that reunification of the two sides will mean a change in the existing way of life of Taiwan people and that everything will be “mainlandized”. In her “Double Ten” speech, Tsai declared that “the path that China has laid out offers neither a free and democratic way of life for Taiwan.” This is a shameless deception and is intended to trick the Taiwan people to “sacrifice themselves for democracy and freedom.” This is not an attempt to make the island of Taiwan into an Israel. It is clearly a plan to turn Taiwan into a Hamas.
Now, the US and its Asia-Pacific allies are instigating Taiwan spiritually to go down the path of confronting the mainland and separating the island from the country, which is a dead end. Tsai’s government has been holding on to these forces, taking Taiwan people as hostage for their gamble. I hope people of Taiwan can have basic judgement and refuse to become pawns or cannon fodder for the interests of the US, Japan and Australia. Unification of China is a consistent and justified agenda since modern times. Those who vilify it are definitely the evil forces of anti-history and anti-humanity.
Taiwan is standing at a crossroads. It can walk toward a proud path of peaceful unification but it can also be led to disaster by those evil forces. They are fooling the Taiwan people. I want to tell people of Taiwan to hold on and keep a clear mind!
The writer is editor-in-chief of the Global Times.
