Australians are alert to the risks of potential conflict in the Taiwan Strait but are not yet prepared for the consequences, according to a report released by ASPI today on community and institutional responses to potential crises in the Strait. The report aims to aid cross-sectoral planning for a whole-of-nation response to a possible Taiwan contingency by exploring the roles key groups in Australia could play, and what could be done to assist those groups.
There has already been some progress in preparing Australia’s business and civic organisations for a potential crisis. In 2020, China delivered a stark lesson to Australia, using a series of punishing trade restrictions to demonstrate the inseparable links between trade and geopolitics. That experience had a profound impact on Australian businesses and communities, prompting a reassessment of risk and readiness.
Since then, Australia’s leading business council has become increasingly aware of the need to integrate economic and national security decision-making. This shift aims to enable efficient and effective responses in the face of a rapidly changing geostrategic landscape. Universities have also begun to adapt, encouraged by the federal government.
However, the broader not-for-profit sector remains focused primarily on non-traditional security issues such as climate change and natural disasters. While these organisations are responsive to these kinds of challenges, they have yet to fully recognise their potential role in alleviating the social impacts of a heightened crisis in the Taiwan Strait, or why this calls for their urgent attention.
The report finds that Australian communities and organisations recognise the high risk of an aggravated crisis, but relatively few appear to recognise the potentially catastrophic consequences of a crisis of that kind. Bloomberg Economics and the International Monetary Fund estimate that the economic fallout would far eclipse all other major recent global economic shocks, including the 2008 global financial crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic. Even a crisis scenario that avoided outright conflict, such as a blockade, would affect regional trade and livelihoods similarly to the financial crisis and pandemic.
Beyond the economic impacts, the social consequences of major conflict in the Taiwan Strait would be devastating for many in the Australian community. Taiwanese Australians and short-term visitors from Taiwan could be prevented from contacting friends and family or from returning home. The social consequences could also be felt widely across Australia’s diverse Chinese Australian communities, partly on account of internal divisions on the issue, but also because many report fears of scapegoating or racist abuse if Australia were to become directly involved in any conflict in the Taiwan Strait.
The effect is likely to be greatest among young people, including international students and visitors on working holidays. For example, each year around 15,000 young people from Taiwan enter Australia on working holiday visas and can be found working in fruit orchards, vegetable plantations, abattoirs and service industries across the country for up to three years. At any one time, many thousands of young Taiwanese serve in rural and regional areas, beyond the reach of Taiwan’s limited consular services and urban-based community associations. In such cases, local charities, religious congregations and regional chapters of service clubs may be well positioned to assist in the event of a crisis affecting young people in their neighbourhoods.
Chinese Australian community concerns around racism and scapegoating need to be addressed with care and sensitivity. If they began contingency planning now, community organisations—including ethnic Chinese associations, service and sporting clubs, charities, and religious congregations—could help and reassure those fearing racial abuse or scapegoating in case of a crisis.
Such civil society engagement would help Australia as well as advance Australia’s unofficial relations with Taiwan. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade advises that the Australian government ‘strongly supports the development, on an unofficial basis, of economic and cultural relations with Taiwan, including a range of two-way visits, state, territory and local government contacts, trade and investment opportunities and people-to-people links.’ That’s a green light for greater community-to-community engagement in the national interest.
It need not be a one-way street. Taiwan has much to offer in return for community-level assistance through its own civil society organisations, which have extensive experience and skills in managing natural disasters, climate mitigation, energy transition, cybersecurity, disinformation and civil defence. Australia’s community organisations could draw on Taiwan’s experience and expertise in areas of common concern, including in traditional and non-traditional security areas. This would at the same time build familiarity through the kind of people-to-people ties that close cooperation requires.
Where additional resources are needed to advance this all-of-nation approach to security and social welfare, government may be able to assist. The National Foundation for Australia–China Relations supports projects helping communities that identify as Chinese Australian, including Taiwanese Australians if they wish to identify in that way. In addition, Foreign Minister Penny Wong recently announced funding for a Civil Society Partnerships Fund supporting civil society engagement between Australian and regional partners.
Community organisations are among this country’s most valued resource: local Australian communities cooperating in an all-of-nation approach to their own security and welfare.