Did the Taiwanese media say much about Downer's comments?

The Australian foreign minister recently said that if there was a war between China and Taiwan and the US defended Taiwan, Australia wouldn’t necessarily help the US, because we wouldn’t be bound by the ANZUS treaty in that case.

I was just wondering how that went over in Taiwan. Did anyone take much notice? Was there much about it in the Taiwanese media?

So… we’ll back up the US in imposing democracy on a country that’s never had it, but when it comes to defending an existing democracy money seems to be more important than human rights.

the world revolves around money - fact.

Coming from a country that allowed the Chinese to dictate which members of its parliament would be present when addressed by Hu Jin-tao, you are surprised by this?

so?

Downer had a valid point. ANZUS (pfft, more like A-US since NZ went nuke-free) only covers attacks on another signatory’s territory. Therefore no-one should expect Australia or the US to get involved with any China-Taiwan war if the US did, in the same way no-one expected NZ and Oz to join Bush’s little jaunt into Iraq. That Australia did join that is unrelated.

As for the question you asked, I don’t really know. I didn’t get any of the Chinese papers around then, and the Taipei Times just had some AP nugget off to one side…

Wasn’t this the same speech where President Hu basically told the Aussies that any support for Taiwan would mean China cutting them off economically? And the Aussies promptly kow-towed nine times and shuffled backward out the door facing downward.