Poor Stan

Thursday 23 March 2023

Hugh White is exactly right.

Defence Minister Richard Marles is sure that the AUKUS submarine deal does not commit Australia to support America in a war with China over Taiwan. He made the point in two different ways during an interview with the ABC’s Insiders program on Sunday, responding to two questions from host David Speers.

SPEERS: In return for access to these Virginia-class subs, has Australia given the United States any sort of commitment explicitly, implicitly, that we will be there in the event of a conflict over Taiwan?

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About the author

David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.