Al-anwar Newspaper English news in Australia
Former Prime Minister John Howard has said that there is little the government can do to free Australians such as journalist Cheng Lei currently detained in China but added that he did not think it was likely that the government in Beijing would order the takeover of Taiwan by force.
“I don’t think China will try to subjugate Taiwan by force, unless it wants a 20 year guerrilla war (against a population) where 68 per cent of Taiwanese identify as Taiwanese and not mainland Chinese,” Mr Howard told The Daily Telegraph on the eve of the publication of his latest book, A Sense of Balance, which explores the unique nature of Australia’s political system.
“My instinct is that China will have looked at Ukraine and realised what they are trying to achieve is much harder,” he said, referring to the military aid and support provided by western nations to the government in Kyiv and the difficulty Russia has had in its campaign.
“At the end of the day you have got this massive Russian army which has this fearsome reputation (getting bogged down) in Ukraine,” he said.
Despite this, Mr Howard said that there was little more Australia could do to pressure Beijing to release jailed citizens including journalist Cheng Lei, who has been held by China on national security charges for over two years.
“It’s terrible, but there is very little you can do and they know it,” he said.
Mr Howard added that time was not on China’s side due to an ageing population and economic difficulties.
“My theory is that the inevitability of Chinese dominance is falsely based.”
“They’ve got this huge demographic problem of turning old before they become rich.”
Mr Howard said that he was impressed by China’s leadership when he was prime minister, particularly Premier Zhu Rongji, who he recalled as a “fluent” speaker of English.
“It was a different China then, and we were encouraging the Chinese leadership at the time to get on with the rest of the world.”
Mr Howard also said that he was concerned about Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s push to embed an Indigenous “voice” to parliament in the Constitution.
“It’s very hard to work out what Mr Albanese is saying about the ‘voice’.”
“In one breath he says there’s nothing to be concerned about, but then in an interview he said it would be a very brave government that ignored its opinion.”
