Best of 2025 - Australia is one trade deal away from backing authoritarians, says Taiwan |
In the grand tradition of diplomatic overreach, Taiwan’s deputy foreign minister recently offered some sweet and spicy talking points to our media: semiconductors are tanks, China is akin to WWII Germany, and if Australia doesn’t fast-track Taiwan into the CPTPP, we might all wake up speaking Mandarin under a fascist AI regime, as reported by News Corp and 7 News.
Repost from 28 August , 2025
Francois Chih-chung Wu, Taiwan’s Deputy Foreign Minister and former ambassador to France, warned that Beijing aims to “weaponise the Taiwanese chips capability to rule the world”, drawing a direct comparison to Nazi Germany’s annexation of Czechoslovakia in 1938.
“Germany obtained the industrial power of Czechoslovakia. Then they invaded Poland and France using tanks made in Czechoslovakia.”
It’s a stirring comparison – provided one has never encountered a semiconductor, studied military procurement or opened a history book.
Whatever divides the two sides of the Strait today, their histories remain intertwined. Both were victims of Axis aggression – colonised, bombed and brutalised during one of the darkest chapters of the 20th century. It is written in blood and that legacy deserves more respect than rhetorical theatrics.
It’s worth noting — as even many China-watchers across the spectrum quietly do — that........