Australia discussing ‘contingency’ plans with United States over possible Taiwan conflict

A senior American diplomat says Australia and the United States are discussing contingency plans in case a military conflict erupts over Taiwan.

The US embassy’s most senior diplomat currently posted to Australia, Michael Goldman, has also praised Australia for standing up to China’s “economic coercion” during the past year.

“We have enormous respect for what Australia’s done over the past year, in calling for a COVID investigation, in standing up to economic coercion, and I should say in the course of that proving that your economy is much more resilient in terms of your markets than you may have anticipated,” he said.

In a wide-ranging discussion on an Australian National University podcast, Mr Goldman was asked to describe the significance of Taiwan in conversations between the US and its allies in the region, including Australia.

“I think we’re committed as allies to working together, not only in making our militaries interoperable and functioning well together but also in strategic planning,” Mr Goldman said.

“And when you look at strategic planning, it covers the range of contingencies that you’ve mentioned, of which Taiwan is obviously an important component,” he added.

Across the region, concerns are growing over escalating tensions between China and the democratic nation of Taiwan, which China considers a renegade territory of its own.

Mr Goldman is the chargé d’affaires in Canberra, with President Joe Biden yet to announce a replacement for the Donald Trump-appointed former ambassador Arthur Culvahouse, who returned home earlier this year.

He said while the US was focused on the risk of Taiwan facing an “overt crude military intervention”, it was “also concerned with all sorts of other aspects of coercion that don’t quite reach the level of a military invasion”.

“You can think of all sorts of things, ranging from a blockade to cyber incursions to, you know, lobbing missiles over the island. We’re thinking about all sorts of those other things,” Mr Goldman said.

Australia does not formally recognise Taiwan diplomatically, but the government regularly calls for a “peaceful resolution” of differences between China and the small independent nation through dialogue and without the threat or use of force or coercion.

During his conversation with the head of ANU’s national security college, Professor Rory Medcalf, Mr Goldman did not indicate whether the Biden administration expected Australia to deploy any personnel in the event of an armed conflict over Taiwan.

Mr Goldman, who has previously been posted to Taiwan, said the US was “bound by a moral obligation and also a matter of legislation to help Taiwan with its legitimate self-defence needs”.

In December, a senior Taiwanese politician called for greater security and economic cooperation with Australia as his nation tries to counter China’s increasingly assertive military.