Interview Transcript: Nauru Severs Diplomatic Ties with Taiwan, Recognises China (RN Breakfast)

Sally Sara: What do you think about this decision by Nauru?

Michael Walsh: I don’t think that it’s very surprising. We’ve seen this play out over time in very many places across the Pacific. We saw both Kiribati and Solomon Islands obviously end their recognition of Taiwan and then they very quickly they moved forward with strengthening their relations with China and using that as leverage (against the United States) and I think that was very effective for both of those countries and I think that Nauru has learned from those experiences.

Sally Sara: What do you think that it means for the wider Pacific?

Michael Walsh: There is this challenge going in the wider Pacific right now between the US and China and the competition that is happening … We talk about the Pacific as if it’s one region, but … something very important for people to understand is that the Pacific is a bunch of subregions, and for the United States that’s very important. Nauru is located in Micronesia, and Micronesia has historically been a part of the Pacific that the U.S. has placed considerably more value on because it is very close to Hawaii and Guam and CNMI. And so, for the United States, in this part of the Pacific, which is the backyard of the United States and part of our homeland, one of the challenges is that China has really ramped up their competition against the United States. We see this with asymmetric warfare that is going on with the cyber attacks against US military facilities across Micronesia, we see the covert influence campaigns and the referencing of U.S. military bases as outposts to wage wars, we see the bribery through the casinos, through Chinese economic interests, we see this checkbook diplomacy happening for diplomatic recognition, and we see attempts to get forward military bases and contingency site locations in the Pacific and there are some concerns that might include Micronesia. And so, I think that we are prosecuting a continued progression in this competition and this is just the latest example of it.

Sally Sara: Which approach has proven successful for China in the Pacific do you think? What has been working for them?

Michael Walsh: I think that just destabilizing the status quo … From a Chinese perspective, anything that destabilizes the status quo and undermines American hegemony is to their benefit. And so, you can put as many chips on the table and just make bets where you can and hope that some of them pay off. I think that’s been a large part of the strategy for China. They look for opportunities that they can exploit and there’s always opportunities to exploit when you are talking about this many countries and you are talking about the global context in which we are living in right now.

Sally Sara: What does this mean for Taiwan to have lost support from Nauru?

Michael Walsh: It means two things. One is that it obviously is not going to be a welcomed development for Taiwan. It was a very sour news story for them to have to tackle right after the announcement of the elections. So I think that it’s obviously one of those things where they have to manage the negative fallout from this in domestic terms because it sends a message to people who voted that there’s consequences for their vote and that’s not going to be something that’s positively received by people back home. But I think that it’s also an opportunity for Taiwan. Taiwan has been very effective in the last 24–48 hours to get out the message that this is a blatant attack on democracy and that this shows that China is out to stamp out democracy in the region. And so, they can use it just like China is doing covert influence against the United States and against Taiwan and against other countries in the region, if Taiwan is effective and they do this right, they can also use it to sow some covert influence against China.

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Interview Source: RN Breakfast via Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Image Credit: 151517533@N04 via Flickr CC