A Sky News special investigation has revealed Australia is outgunned and severely underprepared to face the threat of conflict in in the region.
Sky News Australia’s Pete Stefanovic has uncovered how China has boosted its war preparations across the Pacific and appears poised to make moves against Taiwan.
Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu told Sky News Australia war between the two nations, separated by only 161 kilometres, was increasingly likely.“If you look at China’s long-term military trajectory it’s been threatening Taiwan more and more and more.” However former US secretary of defence Leon Panetta said it was clear the United States would “go to war if necessary to protect Taiwan”.
If war came to the Pacific, shadow defence minister Andrew Hastie believes it would be “far worse than anything in the 20th century”. But the former major general said that would ultimately expose Australia’s critical weakness – its reliance on seaborne trade. “Therefore, our food production will drop and the impact of no diesel on our food production is terrifying.”
But John Coyne from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute forecast a bleak scenario where the government would have to choose between sending finite warships to battle or deploying them as escorts for the exports and imports. The Director of Taiwan’s Department of Chinese Affairs Dr Lei Chung said the possibility of a direct threat on Australian shores could grow if Taiwan and the United States fell.
“I think we can defend this country but we can’t defend it with 60,000 fulltime troops 80,000 part time troops,” he said.
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