Future Australian parliamentary visits to Taiwan should include government officials or even ministers, Barnaby Joyce has said after meeting with Taiwan’s president.
Joyce, the former deputy prime minister and former deputy chair of the national security committee, is among a cross-party group of federal politicians visiting Taiwan this week.
He spoke to Guardian Australia shortly after the group met Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, on Thursday. Other members of the delegation include Labor MPs Libby Coker and Meryl Swanson.
The group is not on a formal government trip. Visits by sitting ministers or prime ministers are considered to be highly provocative by the Chinese government.
Joyce said he thought “it would be smart” for future delegations to include government officials or ministers on such sensitive trips.
“When you’re more experienced you know how to not go off script, but if you have delegations without government officials, they could, dangerously so.”
He said that hadn’t happened on this visit, however. “You’d be hearing about it, wouldn’t you.”
The visit is Australia’s first in almost three years but one of many by foreign parliamentarians this year who have sought to show support to Taipei in the face of Beijing’s military threats and harassment, economic coercion, and cognitive warfare.
Under its “one China” policy, Australia does not recognise Taiwan as a sovereign country, but maintains unofficial and economic relations.
“The most important thing is that we’re there,” said Joyce.
Delegations from other countries have usually included press conferences, public events, and presidential meetings which are livestreamed or open to the press. But Australia’s group has done none of this, taken to be a sign of it treading carefully as the government simultaneously works to repair its relationship with Beijing.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has played down the trip, saying it is simply a resumption of bipartisan trips by MPs that were only suspended after 2019 because of the pandemic.
Joyce said there hadn’t been any “direct request” to him from the prime minister’s office or the foreign affairs department to operate with a lower profile.
“I’m a former deputy PM and deputy of the national security committee so it wasn’t totally silent. That in itself has attracted the ire of mainland China,” he said, in reference to recent Chinese state media denouncements and comments by China’s ministry of foreign affairs.
The CCP objects to any sign of recognition for Taiwanese sovereignty, in particular visits by political dignitaries. Last month a visit by British trade minister Greg Hands, was condemned by Beijing. After US House speaker Nancy Pelosi visited in August, the CCP’s People’s Liberation Army encircled Taiwan’s main island and staged days of live fire drills.
The Australians’ four-day trip also included meeting Taiwan’s foreign minister, Joseph Wu, who told Guardian Australia he understood Canberra was facing a “balancing act” with his government and Beijing.
“But we don’t question the support of the Australian government, the Australian parliament, and Australian people for Taiwan, especially as Taiwan is already a democracy,” Wu said.
Joyce said the meeting with president Tsai, at which she was given an Australian flag and an RM Williams belt, “went well”, and focused mainly on trade and Taiwan’s wish to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, as well as renewable and nuclear energy.
“We did touch on the wider ramifications of the mainland [China] – Taiwan arrangement, and they said the problem is that president Xi had turned himself more into an emperor than a president, and is becoming more dynastic than it has been,” Joyce said.
Joyce said Australia’s formal position on Taiwan and China opposed unilateral changes to the status quo, and supported the continuation of strategic ambiguity – the US’s long-running position of refusing to confirm if it would come to Taiwan’s defence militarily in the event of an invasion.
Australia and the US said after annual high-level talks in Washington DC this week that they viewed Taiwan as “a leading democracy in the Indo-Pacific region, an important regional economy, and a key contributor to critical supply chains”.
The US announced it would increase rotations of its air, land and sea forces to Australia and condemned China’s “dangerous and coercive actions” across the Indo-Pacific region.
The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, said on Wednesday that Australia had “a strong stake in preserving peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait” and opposed any unilateral changes to the status quo.
“We value our long standing unofficial relationship with Taiwan underpinned by cultural, economic, and people to people ties,” she said.
Australia and the US also vowed to work for Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international organisations, but Taiwan’s bid to join the CPTPP is far from guaranteed.
Wong said last week that Australia’s present focus was on the UK’s application. She also noted any application would require the consensus of all 11 parties.
Joyce said he was returning to Australia on Thursday night.
