"The war in Iran has also demonstrated how a regional conflict can have global economic implications." As good a defence of AUKUS from @peterkhalilmp.bsky.social that can be made while the Australian government sticks to its reluctance to say "Taiwan".

The Australian government has tabled the Australia’s Foreign Relations (State and Territory Arrangements) Amendment Bill 2026, which includes the inclusion of transnational education arrangements under its provisions, with one consequential caveat.

Op-ed by PRC ambassador to Australia submitted to the Nine Fairfax papers attacking ASIO. Concluding with the phrase Xi Jinping famously said to Putin: "In the face of profound changes unseen in a century, China stands ready to work shoulder-to-shoulder with Australia..."

The demand to only see the world through the lens of US power and the refusal to see PRC power and the PRC system is the Australian political left's version of the monoculture.

AUKUS has many issues but @davidshoebridge.bsky.social wants a national security policy that assumes that an authoritarian party-state under the control of one man will be a rational actor and believes that Australia can remain isolated from the effects of China going to war with Taiwan.

From the @nytimes.com interview with @albomp.bsky.social, some long-overdue robust language on China and Beijing's intentions.

Trailer for the documentary In the Making: An Australia–Taiwan Indigenous Art Exchange 生成之間: 澳洲與台灣原住民族藝術交流 An account of the extraordinary multi-year project of exchange and learning between Australia and Taiwan indigenous artists. www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYT0...

😮‍💨 Australian progressive activists like @emmashortis.bsky.social, @leanneminshull.bsky.social and @davidshoebridge.bsky.social still haven't been able to develop a critique AUKUS and the US alliance that doesn't rely on misunderstanding, disregarding and even disparaging the Taiwanese.

Distressing and wrongheaded comments about a PRC invasion of Taiwan from @australiainstitute.org.au's @leanneminshull.bsky.social, a war that would cost countless lives and destroy a society, and directly devastate Australia's economy and the lives of Chinese and Taiwanese communities in Australia.

At an anti-AUKUS public event in Sydney, a good question about China's threat to Taiwan, a response from @davidshoebridge.bsky.social that starts as uncomprehending and descends into the bizarre.

Another mention of Taiwan in this walled-garden of opinion on Australia foreign policy that is unable to see outside the US alliance (even alluding to the absurd Trump-Xi Iran-Taiwan deal idea). Treating the Taiwanese, and China, as mere metaphors for anti-alliance politics.

Tell me again how Taiwan and war in the Taiwan Strait are "not a vital strategic interest" for Australia. www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03...

Australian uni sector peak body Universities Australia promotes a keynote at their annual conference by PRC ambassador Xiao Qian using word-for-word CCP slogans.

Vital step in Taiwan's long journey of truth and reconciliation. Authoritarianism and historical trauma continue to shape politics, culture, identities and inter-generational relations in Taiwan very directly. focustaiwan.tw/politics/202...

The rules-based international order really is over. "South Australia secures Australian MotoGP, world-first street circuit announced" www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02...

Everything described here is true, as some of us had seen some years ago, but there is nothing here about what it means for Australian universities to be integrated into the PRC system in this way, just a market logic that occludes the nature of that system.

Shocking comments by the PRC ambassador to Australia about Taiwan. Disinformation, declaring that Taiwanese who oppose annexation should leave Taiwan, and directly linking Australia's sovereign national debate about regional security and Taiwan to good relations with China.

Superb analysis from @nathanattrill.bsky.social. "Put simply, the scale and persistence of Chinese military activity around Taiwan look less like signalling and more like systematic preparation for the use of force, conducted on Beijing’s own timetable." www.aspistrategist.org.au/that-isnt-si...

An escalation of political warfare by the PRC ambassador Xiao Qian in the national Australian media. Disinformation, misrepresentation, and a new explicit demand to accept in silence Taiwan's annexation and its catastrophic consequences.

"...do we back the US or China in a battle over Taiwan." As always, Laura Tingle unable to conceptualise backing the Taiwanese, so ends up grotesquely suggesting that Australia could actually support a PRC invasion of Taiwan (with troops? materiel? a UN statement?) www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01...

Shanghai Oceans University with a leadership conference on the 4th Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee, with comments by the dean of the UTAS JV Ai'en College with far-reaching implications for the Australian university sector. www.shou.edu.cn/2025/1025/c1...

From Geoffrey Robertson, no less. You can really see where a certain block of Australian elite opinion will go in rationalising a PRC invasion of Taiwan, at least until the global economy crashes, the AUD is at USD25c and emergency interest rates are 30%. www.smh.com.au/national/thi...

University of Tasmania and its Shanghai Oceans University JV Aien College visit the Shanghai office of US-sanctioned PRC AI company SenseTime to sign a partnership. ien.shou.edu.cn/2025/1211/c2...

"In Taiwan you can win the lottery just by shopping" www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12...

Japanese ambassador to Australia responds to PRC ambassador's attack.

As Beijing continues military threats and political warfare against Taiwan, PRC Ambassador Xiao Qian warns Australia about "appeasement" of Japan, following PM Takaichi's comments that a PRC war against the Taiwanese would threaten Japan's security.

For some reason, @abcnews reissues one of its worst reports on Taiwan, from 2005. www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTtb...

"To assure peace and prosperity, secessionists would be crushed, state media declared brightly. It’s obvious – Beijing just doesn’t get it. Yes, it is. And Beijing is holding the whole world hostage with its Taiwan delusion. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Generous account of our new @aspi-org.bsky.social @defenceaustralia.bsky.social report "Australian Public and Institutional Responses to Taiwan Strait Crises" from Paul Monk in The Australian, with important insights into facing realities of Beijing's threats against the Taiwanese.

Dreadful and irresponsible from @mattbevan.bsky.social's ABC "If You're Listening" series, on China and Taiwan, blithely and glibly imagining that Taiwan has no history before 1949, so believing that China and Taiwan corresponds to the CCP and the KMT and so getting it all wrong.

"But Taiwan is a legacy from the Chinese civil war, a final bastion of the Nationalists that lost the mainland to the communists." Please, @jamesoaten.bsky.social, Taiwan was a Japanese colonial territory from 1895, the end of the Qing, to 1945. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11...

Good explainer on a "crisis" in China-Japan relations that has had bizarrely little coverage in Australia. "Crisis" in quotes because obviously Beijing is using the Japanese PM's remarks as a pretext to test her government early in its term. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...

Nothing here that surprises anyone who has followed transnational education with the PRC, but highlights that whatever of the overheated hopes or claims by foreign universities, these partnerships are always just relationships with the state. www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/...

Interview with the incomparable Leona Chen, eloquent on the work of living, representing and making Taiwanese identity and politics across generations and geographies. www.youtube.com/watch?v=v15T...

Honda's reusable rocket prototype.

Important piece from @heldavidson.bsky.social tracking a shift from Beijing's military warfare to political warfare against Taiwan, as military activity in the Taiwan Strait hit their current threat salience limit just short of a kinetic event. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...

Australia’s Understanding and Preparedness for a Taiwan Strait Contingency. From me, for Australian Outlook. www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianou...

Important and shocking report from Amy Hawkins in @theguardian.com Furthermore, foreign universities, including in Australia, have partnerships with inland PRC universities directly involved in the central government campaign against Uyghurs since 2017. www.theguardian.com/education/20...

"Our Al turned your paper into a shareable comic." Oh ... no.

Comments by me on the research report "Australian public and institutional responses to Taiwan Strait crises", on better coordination between the Commonwealth and state govts. and industry, and listening to the Taiwanese-Australian community. www.canberratimes.com.au/story/910142...

🚨 NEW REPORT 🚨 In ‘Australian public and institutional responses to Taiwan Strait crises’, Mark Harrison, Mei-fen Kuo, John Fitzgerald, Nathan Attrill & Marc Ablong PSM provide vital insights into how Australians understand & are likely to respond to crises in the Taiwan Strait. 🔖 : bit.ly/43BHggS

Good from @gideonrachman.bsky.social, getting a proper read on what an invasion of Taiwan by China actually means regardless of the US position and placing agency where it belongs, with Xi Jinping. In truth, the crisis would never end, as Japan learned in 1930. www.ft.com/content/f2de...

When pundits discuss Taiwan’s fate without recognizing its people’s voice, they are not describing geopolitics — they are performing it. The language of “strategic calculation” becomes a tool of erasure.

The self-ascribed progressive alternative to ABC's The Insiders, #SundayShot, @instanterudite.bsky.social and Bruce Wolpe with dreadful comments about Taiwan, bizarrely claiming the US could cede Taiwan to China as if it is it US territory, erasing 23m people with their own story.

Shocker from David Speers, taking Trump's comments with Albanese and spinning them into a misguided commentary on a "war over Taiwan" that has no meaningful understanding of Taiwan or its relationship to China. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10...

"‘Country could shut down’: Australia has just 28 days of petrol" Racking my brains trying to think of some possible regional crisis that could disrupt Australia's oil imports. www.afr.com/policy/forei...

Tasmanian Chinese Buddhist Academy of Australia Cultural Park, under construction for many years, vandalised with "中国统战部AUS HQ".

"...on the other is the Kuomintang (KMT) party, which has always been friendlier with China, and encouraged more dialogue." Has it, though? www.bbc.com/news/article...

"An absolute resolve to stand together and defend democracy itself." Australian PM Albanese on defending democracy. A line with far-reaching implications given the active threat to one particular democracy in our region. www.pm.gov.au/media/addres...

"Funding deal for research program about Australia's polar security rejected by Tasmanian government." A lot to unpack here.