According to a report by the Australian Financial Review on Nov. 24, Douglas Hsu, the chief representative of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Australia (the name for Taiwan’s essential embassies abroad), is urging the Australian government to include the island of Taiwan in the AUKUS security pact between the U.S., Britain and Australia. He claimed that the Taiwan authorities had expressed interest in joining Pillar II of AUKUS, which includes military and technical cooperation but not the nuclear submarines.
China’s Global Times reports on Nov. 26 that this reflects the recent Japanese threat to intervene if China moves to reunify Taiwan with military force: “By seeking to join AUKUS and warning against ‘coercive behavior’ from the mainland, Taiwan is embarking on an opportunistic path to stage a political stunt, according to Chinese experts the Global Times interviewed.”
