Transcript

What kind of external pressures and foreign interference is Taiwan facing?  

How does Taiwan balance its status as a global tech giant with its regional security vulnerabilities? 

In what ways are Australia’s interests intertwined with the security and resilience of Taiwan? 

In this episode, Ketty Chen and Mark Harrison join Susan Dietz to discuss Taiwan's national security challenges, focusing on the influence of China, the complexities of Taiwan's domestic politics, and the implications of its role in the global tech supply chain.   

(This transcript is AI-generated and may contain inaccuracies.)

Ketty Chen

When it comes to Taiwan, the massive information manipulation campaign from across the strait has been plaguing Taiwan for quite a long time. So every time when there's local election, national election, you see a surge of information manipulation campaign.

Mark Harrison

Taiwan's security is also Australia's security and vice versa. The kinds of threats that China makes towards Taiwan are really not in anybody's interests.

National Security Podcast

You're listening to the National Security Podcast, the show that brings you expert analysis, insights and opinion on the national security challenges facing Australia and the Indo-Pacific, produced by the ANU National Security College.

Susan Dietz

Welcome to the National Security Podcast. I'm Susan Dietz, Senior Executive Advisor at the ANU National Security College. Today's podcast is being recorded on the lands of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people, and I pay my respects to their elders past and present. This week, I'm joined by Ketty Chen and Mark Harrison for a conversation about Taiwanese perspectives and responses to the evolving international order and its ramifications. To briefly introduce our guests,

Dr. Ketty Chen is an advisor for the National Bureau of Asian Research and an expert associate at NSC. A political scientist by training, Ketty received her doctorate in political science from the University of Oklahoma, specializing in comparative politics, democratization, international relations, and political philosophy.

Dr. Mark Harrison is a senior lecturer in Chinese studies at the University of Tasmania and an expert associate at NSC. He's a founding fellow of the Australian Centre on China in the World at ANU and was previously a research fellow at the Centre for the Study of Democracy at the University of Westminster in London. He's also the author of a range of publications on Taiwanese and Chinese politics, culture and society. And his recent book with Catherine Cho is entitled Revolutionary Taiwan, Making Nationhood in a Changing World Order. And for you listeners out there to note before we begin,

The opinions and comments made by our guests today are entirely their own. So with that, Ketty, Mark, welcome to the podcast.

Ketty Chen

Thank you, Susan.

Mark Harrison

Thank you, Susan. It's so wonderful to be here.

Susan Dietz

It's great to see you again, Mark. I noted in a pre-election podcast on Taiwan in late 2023, which you were part of that discussion, that I noted that those elections were arguably the most consequential for Taiwan since elections were first held almost 30 years ago and the most contested since 2000. Taiwan seemed to be at an inflection point.

The results would have implications not only for Taiwan's relationship with Beijing, but also how whoever was elected would manage increasingly challenging domestic, social and economic policy issues while prosecuting its foreign policy priorities in the current strategic environment. So we fast forward to today and the international environment is indeed in a state of uncertainty as countries around the world, no less in our region, are coming to grips with a changing international order, underlined dramatically by and not simply because of the changes in US policy under Trump, including his decisions on tariffs and sanctions.

The other part of this complex environment is an increasingly confident and powerful China, prosecuting its regional and global agenda in an increasingly sophisticated and assertive way. So President Trump's transactional approach to allies, partners and competitors alike has been disconcerting, to say the least, for everyone.

For example, something of most direct concern for Taiwan, the US Under Secretary for Defence Policy Eldridge Colby's recent comments that Washington needs to motivate Taiwan to avoid a conflict with China and is quote unquote profoundly disturbed about its perceived reluctance to raise defence spending closer to 10 % of GDP. So Mark, I might start with you and ask what...your views are on what Taiwan's priorities or interests are and the analysis when they're responding to such signals from the United States.

Mark Harrison

There are a lot of moving parts in where we are at the moment. There wasn't a given when the Taiwanese presidential elections were held last year that there would be a change of government in the United States to Donald Trump and he'd return to the White House. And so I think everyone is doing a lot of calculations as to exactly where they are setting their policies and how they are communicating to the different capitals what their approach to the situation is. I think the Taiwanese had anticipated to an extent that they would be under increasing pressure from the United States to be seen to be doing more on their approach to defence. And there's obviously a lot that has actually happened. I think they're also constrained a little bit by their relationship with Beijing and a sense that they don't want to be seen to be fully militarizing. They don't want to be seen to be particularly belligerent in terms of raising their level of preparedness because Beijing can treat that as an excuse to then respond. the Taiwanese have always had to walk this very, very fine line in terms of being seen to be doing enough not to be too visible and to create a pretext for Beijing to then begin to antagonize them.

And I think that they're just trying to calculate the best way to achieve all of that at the moment. I'd add also that it's not just the defence story for Taiwan. I think also the economic and trade story is really significant for them. Again, I think there was a lot of anticipation that they might be in this situation.

And if you look at particularly TSMC, the semiconductor manufacturer, they're announcing these gigantic investments in the United States as part of a multi-domain position for Taiwan with respect to both Beijing and Washington. But it's a dynamic situation. They're getting a lot of moving parts to how they're trying to calculate the best approach to the situation. And I think every day is bringing new challenges for the Taiwanese and for everybody as well.

Susan Dietz

Kitty, do you have any additional comments on that?

Ketty Chen

Yes, just to add to Mark just said about Taiwan really needs to make consideration in all aspects and also to maintain and facilitate good relationship with the United States. The new Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the State Department has already reassured the Taiwanese that the US Taiwan relationship had been rocks solid as before and at the same time, the new president of Taiwan, William Lai Ching-te, he also made public comments that the Taiwan defence budget will exceed 3 % of its economic output. So he is having a public announcement to reiterate Taiwan's commitment to maintaining peace and stability in the region. What Taiwan actually did in the past eight years is that it continued to increase defence investment over the two terms of former President Tsai Ing-wen. And the defence budget has actually risen by over 80%.

So it's about 8 % each year in the past eight years. And this is also well above the average GDP growth for Taiwan over this period at about 3.7%. So that's in between 2016 to 2023. And also, when it comes to the defence of Taiwan, I'm by no means a military person or defence expert, but what we know is that when it comes to countering the PRC, asymmetrical warfare is one of the policies that Taiwan is adopting.

And also there's things that, as Mark mentioned, Taiwan did domestically, as in facilitating domestic defence industry and also making Taiwan more self-reliant on defending itself. So that was one of the things that the previous DPP administration and also currently President Lai Ching-te has been doing when it comes to Taiwan's defence and also maintaining good relationship with Taiwan's strongest ally, which is the US.

Mark Harrison

I'd add a couple of wrinkles to that if I might. One is that there's more continuity in the US-Taiwan relationship than might be completely obvious from the level of drama that Washington is generating, particularly in military-to-military affairs. So the US Defense Forces and the Taiwanese military have a very strong and deepening relationship. It's one of the themes of the last decade that increasing levels of support and particularly around training, preparedness, resilience, all of those less obvious sort of features of military cooperation have really moved forward over the last decade and those are continuing. There are very large-scale military exercises coming up for Taiwan, which the US military will be observing and providing advice and expertise and so on in the conduct of.

So there's a lot that's happening there. The other wrinkle that I would add would be the domestic politics element of it for the Lai government and the idea that Taiwan is a democracy and that the Taiwanese people insist on living as a democracy. And so I think there is a complex negotiation with Taiwan's authoritarian past in terms of militarization. There's a sense that during the military dictatorship era, Taiwan was a wholly militarized society. And I think there is a dialogue with the past in terms of how Taiwan discusses its level of military preparedness, because there are these echoes with the authoritarian past that create very complex contemporary politics in Taiwan that often are hard to read from outside, but are very important for how the government communicates its policies and how it supports the Taiwanese people in preparedness without wanting to recall too extremely the excesses of the past. It's a really complex story for the Taiwanese.

Susan Dietz

So Mark, speaking of that, in early April, if I recall correctly, President Lai made some pronouncements including the reestablishment of military courts, if I have this correct. And this was controversial at that time because there has been some concern about the reference to Taiwan's authoritarian past. This was in fact abolished several years ago, if not a decade ago, and has now been re-established.

And shortly after that were the latest spate of Chinese military exercises around the island. So I just wondered if you could, both of you, if you could elaborate a little bit on the debate within Taiwan of this environment and how it's playing out and influencing Taiwan's domestic politics and where China might be trying to play a role to influence the outcome of the debate and local elections as they are underway or being prepared for right now.

Mark Harrison

Sure, I'm very happy to hear what Ketty has to say. President Lai gave a very consequential speech at the end of March where he outlined 17 policy measures around political interference, united front work, security within Taiwan. And that was in response to really a spate of scandals and domestic political crises around PRC interference in Taiwan's civic and public life, not just military matters. There was also espionage cases. And there were these social media influencers who were Chinese born but Taiwan residents. And they had been making social media videos essentially promoting Beijing's line on the future of Taiwan. And so this is creating a very febrile domestic political atmosphere.

And think President Lai wanted to get ahead of that. And so he made this speech with these measures. All of this speaks to what I would define as the kind of securitization of Taiwan's civic life in ways that are very, very complex for the people of Taiwan to negotiate, because it does recall the past. And so think it's very complex story for the Taiwanese. At the same time, President Lai's popularity has really surged, so he seems to be taking the electorate with him in responding to these issues. But I'd be really happy to hear what Ketty has to say on these topics as well.

Ketty Chen

Thank you, Mark. As you mentioned, President Lai really did make a major announcement of the comprehensive 17-point national security strategy. And these strategies have different areas, including, as you mentioned, responding to China's threat to national security, responding to China's threats from infiltration, espionage activities, responding to China's threat aiming at obscuring national identity of the people of Taiwan. Also, China's united front infiltration through cross-strait exchanges. And also, it's a response to China's integrated development tactic targeting business people and youth.

What Susan mentioned when it comes to the military trial system, he proposed a comprehensive review and amendment of the law of military trial to restore military trial system, allowing military judges to handle criminal causes involving active duty military personnel suspected of crime such as sedition, aiding the enemy and leaking confidential information. And what the administration was focusing on is that the military trial system was for active military personnel. And I believe that for Taiwanese and also for politicians alike, Taiwan's authoritarian past, it's still not too far behind when it comes to history. So the administration tread it very carefully and was really clear about these kind of amendments and the possible review of the law of military trial. But as Mark mentioned already, that when it comes to Taiwan, the massive information manipulation campaign from across the strait has been plaguing Taiwan for quite a long time. So every time when there's local election, national election, you see a surge of information manipulation campaign.

And according to research institution of VDEM, unfortunately, Taiwan ranked number one for more than a decade when it comes to foreign information interference of the island. But at the same time, Taiwan really does have a very vibrant civil society who took upon themselves to trying to work together or by themselves and also with the government to try to counter such information manipulation campaign. there are things such as filing bi-weekly reports, extensive researches, also the writing of chat bots for fact checks so people could always receive accurate and timely information from the tons and tons of information that they receive from their smartphone on their daily basis. So this is basically what Taiwan's domestic politics environment has been like for quite a few years already. But at the same time, the government and also civil society have been very actively trying to counter and deal with that.

Susan Dietz

Now, I understand that Taiwan is going through the process of what are locally called recalls, if I have that correctly termed. And I wondered if you could explain a little bit about that process, because of course, most of the audience here won't have taken note of what is going on in Taiwan at the moment. But while it might seem on the surface to be a purely domestic political exercise of democracy.

This does have wider implications because of how much, for example, Beijing will be taking note of the outcomes of this because it does affect the complexion of the legislative yuan. So I wondered if you could give us a little bit of a 101 on what the recalls are about and what the implications might be if the complexion of the legislative yuan does change.

Ketty Chen

So, the recall process, I think it's very complicated for everyone who is a student of Taiwan or even actively involved in Taiwanese politics to understand. So, when it comes to the composition of the Legislative Yuan, the ruling party, the Democratic Progressive Party, now is the minority after 2024 national election.

So, the Kuomintang, the Nationalist Chinese Party, in combination of the independent legislators, constituted a majority. And there's eight legislator-at-large seats that was won by the Taiwan People's Party, which is the third largest party in Taiwan. So, the new class of legislators went to office in February of last year. So, within a year, they pushed through quite a few legislation, which according to the ruling party violates a lot of the procedures of the legislature, and also expanded Legislative Yuan's powers. And after the ruling party filed cases with the constitutional court for constitutional interpretation, in last August, the constitutional court found that some of the legislation that was passed wasn't constitutional, so it cannot be enacted.

So with quite a lot of things going on, and there's quite a few very physical altercations by opposition at the LY. Civil society organization realized that they are legislators from the KMT who are not acting in the benefits of Taiwan's national security. So, the citizens of their district gathered together, I think it was the end of last year, and to start a recall campaign against these what the civil society called pro-Beijing legislators. And Taiwan's recall law has also been amended. And recall has not always been a very difficult process politically in Taiwan, and as it should be, because elections happens for a reason. So, recall law is there to kind of safeguard Taiwan's or any country's democratic institutions and electoral systems. So naturally, elected officials should not be recalled so easily as people voted them in office.

So there's three rounds of processes that civil society organizations have to pass before a legislator is successfully recalled. So they needed to have two rounds of gathering of petitions to try and, the first round is to put into case that this legislator is at least being recalled. And right now in Taiwan domestically, they are, all the organizations are going through round two of the recall process gathering petition. And then round three is for eligible voters within different districts to come out to vote. So they could either vote to recall the legislator or they will vote against the recall. But at the same time, those who are voted for the recall has to exceed the number of the people who are against the recall in order for the legislator to recall.

So all this is really going on locally at the moment with two major rallies happening last weekend and the weekend before from two different camps. then so the expectation is that the recall, actual recall vote will start at around June, July in Taiwan. And there are quite a lot of experts who are making predictions. Some are more optimistic than the others, but the consequential and the importance of this recall is that it might change the composition of the Legislative Yuan, will ultimately not only influence Taiwan's domestic politics, but also how the administration and the legislature could push through Taiwan's domestic policies and also international politics as well. That also includes what we just talked about defence budget and arm purchases, so on and so forth.

Mark Harrison

Yeah, and I would just add to that. I'm delighted that Ketty's been able to explain all of that with such clarity. It's a very complex process. So there's 113 seats in the legislature. I think it's 36 are party list seats and the remainder are district seats. There's currently, I think, 34 or 35 KMT seats going through the recall process. And there's a kind of counter movement which has I think 15 DPP seats, which is not likely to move much further forward than they are. So yeah, the first stage, you've got to get 1 % of the number of people in the district to sign the petition. The second stage is 10%. And then as Ketty mentioned, the third stage is where you need a majority of all of the people in the district to actually recall the legislature. And then you actually have to have a by-election after that. And if a legislator is recalled, they can't stand again in the by-election. So they're prevented from standing for four years.

So all of this is in play. It's a very, very, very complex story being played out right across Taiwan. As Ketty mentioned, the DPP need to flip six seats to get a majority. And that is not an inconsequential political task in any democracy. But it's not an impossible one for the DPP, given where polling is at the moment, given where they actually landed with the elections last year in the first place. So the possibility is that the DPP will return to a majority in the legislature as it enjoyed during the two terms of the previous president, Tsai Ing-wen, and have the President, Lai Ching-te, in the executive. And so that would be a remarkable development in Taiwan's politics without precedent. It would also be an affront to Beijing. And there's no question that Beijing would react extremely strongly to that possible outcome. Beijing has a very strident position on the DPP, which regards the DPP as separatists, and it considers them that they are manipulating the attitudes of Taiwanese people in a kind of nefarious way, it them very negatively. And so they this would validate the some of the conspiratorial sort of tone that Beijing adopts with respect to Taiwanese politics, and it would likely react extremely strongly.

And so I think even though we've had several months of seeming disruption to the international system, I think by the end of this year, early next year, the international outlook or the regional security outlook may look even more febrile than it already does. So I think it's something we should be following very closely.

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Susan Dietz

When Taiwan looks out and thinks about the implications of all of this, not only for itself, but for others regionally or globally, how do you think the domestic debate is playing out when it comes to Taiwan's role, for example, in the global tech supply chain? The implications if TSMC, the investment in the US of TSMC of such a large extent takes place?

And for some in Taiwan, they might regard that as increasing the vulnerability of Taiwan when it comes to its tech security, if you like, in the region and in the global supply chain. The example it sets for China's other territorial claims in the region, how do you think that is being discussed and played out domestically in Taiwan? How is Taiwan looking at its own vulnerability in the world, as well as the implications for others in the region?

Ketty Chen

I would say that on the ground here, much of the discussion is focused a lot more on domestic politics. But when it comes to the projected image of the United States, even with President Biden and then now President Trump, people still view United States as well as Japan under a very positive light. And at the same time, Taiwanese are very proud of their tech companies and also the Taiwanese American CEOs who are really helping not only the global supply chain, but also bridging the relationship between Taiwan and the U.S. And I would say that the people of Taiwan are very positive about TSMC and how they view TSMC as a pride of Taiwan.

And I would say that the investments that was announced of TSMC in Arizona and also to the additional building of the three fabs in the United States are really reported quite a lot during that period of time. And I think it really helped remedy and also project the Taiwanese position when it comes to having good relationship with the United States. So I don't...think that when it comes to vulnerability or also Taiwanese people's view on investment in the US and TSMC and other tech companies' association with the United States and also around the world, it's still being viewed under a very positive light. And I would say that the domestic population really believe that this kind of relationship not only help Taiwan secure its position, in the region and in the world, but also will assist Taiwan when it comes to having its place and making substantive contribution when it comes to regional and global prosperity and stability.

Mark Harrison

Yeah, and I would just add that the investments that TSMC is making in the United States are long-term investments. So they will be underway long after the current US administration has gone. And so they need to be understood in that kind very long-term sense. And the other element of TSMC that I think people don't not always fully grasp is that TSMC is so gigantic. It's so much larger than any other competitor. It effectively has a sort of global monopoly status.

And its level of investment is so enormous that in capital manufacturing that no other company is really competitive with it at the moment. There's an amazing factoid that I heard last year, which is the TSMC by itself consumes 8 % of Taiwan's entire electricity output. And Taiwan's electricity output is basically the same as Australia's. And so this is one company and then you add the other semiconductor companies. So it's a huge percentage.

The projection is that by the end of this decade, TSMC will be using 25 % of the entire electricity output of Taiwan. And so that points to a company that operates on a scale that is hard for the rest of the world to fully conceptualize. And even the investments that it's making in the United States, even though they're colossal, are actually just simply part of one part of a much larger investment portfolio that that company and that other companies are making.

There is this idea of a silicon shield. There's this idea that the semiconductor industry provides a level of security for Taiwan. And I think that's true. And that if Beijing wanted to threaten Taiwan, it would have to do so militarily. It couldn't do so sort of with its own industrial capacity in high technology industries. And it also points to the consequences of conflict. It would be a global conflict that would have global implications because Taiwan is the Godzilla in the semiconductor business and everybody else is a minnow in comparison, even China.

Susan Dietz

Yes, I think that also brings me back to one of the questions about Taiwan's resiliency and its preparedness and what the government is putting in place to make sure that it is in the event of a contingency, not only military conflict with China, but whether to be a catastrophic natural disaster of some kind. The resiliency when it comes to the critical infrastructure on Taiwan and the energy resources it has., of the electrical infrastructure as well. I just wondered if you could make some comment about how much is it? We've talked about potentially 25 % of electricity on Taiwan being utilized by TSMC alone. That would provide a dilemma for China if there were to be some kind of attempt at military occupation because one of the key elements of some kind of blockade or military takeover is that you would have to put the infrastructure under some kind of threat. But at the same time, that is going to take out one of the most critical elements of the global supply chain as we know it. So I just wondered how Taiwan is thinking about those sorts of vulnerabilities and a need for resilience.

Mark Harrison

I think they are. There's a lot of policy around social resilience and infrastructure resilience. I would probably say that there's more work to be done. So electricity production and energy policy generally in Taiwan has been a notorious area of policy. Failure is a bit too strong, but there's government subsidies for energy in Taiwan are colossal.

And they're actually much too high. And it's a huge drain on the national budget. so various governments over the years, including the Ma government, have tried to reduce the level of government subsidy for energy production. So it's very politically costly when they've tried to that, particularly petrol prices.

So there's a lot of policy work there. I think there's a lot more to be done. I think there's work to be done on how you sell energy policy reform domestically in Taiwan's politics. I don't think either side of Taiwan's politics has cracked that particular formula yet. They generally try and avoid it. There's some parallels with Australia and energy policy. We've also got a failure. We have a different set of problems with our energy system here, but the toxicity of it politically is comparable, I think, for the Taiwanese.

Ketty Chen

Yeah. And I might add that President Lai enacted three different committees to help Taiwan bolster his resilience. And one of the three committee, it's what he called the Whole of Society Defence Resilience Committee. And the committee is aimed at strengthening Taiwan's national security and work on improving emergency preparedness, also strengthen and bolster critical infrastructures and expanding the training and utilization of civilian forces. And the ultimate goal is trying to build a very robust democratic society that is capable of withstanding various threats and also helping to ensure regional peace.

So, under former President Tsai, she already rolled out the whole of society defence plan to trying to get It's called the All Out Defence Mobilization Agency to reform the Reserve Forces training and for building what I just mentioned, the whole of society defence resilience. So also these initiatives, they are meant to maximize Taiwan's self-reliance in defence and also very importantly, societal resilience to in face of threats. And addition to that, there are Taiwanese civil society organizations who are also giving classes to help prepare citizens of Taiwan to have them ready in case, as Susan, you mentioned, natural disasters happens and also ultimately what we don't want to see if there is a military attack from the PRC.

Mark Harrison

I’ll follow up just a little bit on that. And I think the 1999 earthquake was very significant in terms of, because was a very devastating earthquake. And I think more than 2000 people were killed in that event. And I think after that, there was a general strengthening of planning laws and regulations around critical infrastructure and so on. Another point I would add is that Taiwan has a net zero plan, which is legislated. There's a lot of reform of the energy mix in Taiwan and Australia is very significant for that because Australia is a key LNG supplier for Taiwan. So they're trying to move away from coal. And so, it's us and Qatar are the two key providers for Taiwan. So, in other words, TSMC using 8 % of Taiwan's electricity output, a lot of that electricity is actually coming, being generated by Australian LNG suppliers.

And I think it just points to the real complexity of these supply chains that no one country in the region is really that separate from any other in terms of maintaining the global economy. So if there's an event in Taiwan, it would have a devastating impact on the global economy. But equally, if there was an event in Australia where we were not able to supply LNG to Taiwan, that would also have a tremendously devastating impact on the global economy. So I think we're all fully implicated in each other's security.

I think in our system, there are parts of our system that have a very acute awareness of that. That's not all the way through our national system and certainly not much in our public life. So I think we can all do better to understand how Taiwan's security is also Australia's security and vice versa. The kinds of threats that China makes towards Taiwan are really not in anybody's interests and frustrating, I think, for everyone to have to deal with.

Susan Dietz

Thanks. Well, we're getting very much close to time here. just wondered, Ketty, if you had any final thoughts about this topic overall. I know that it's been disconcerting to observe United States, which might potentially not be interested in the assumptions we've all made about its commitment to democratic partners and the norms and rules of the international order that we've thrived in. And I just wonder, looking out from the Taiwan lens what sort of parting thoughts you might have about how Taiwan is thinking about that.

Ketty Chen

I think Mark's last comment really resonated with me because of what he was saying about Taiwan's security versus Australian security. Taiwan is positioned in the first island chain and strategically it's already a very important geopolitical position to be in. And also Taiwan being one of the most democratic countries in the region is also significant in the sense that if a democracy like Taiwan would have fallen under the authoritarian regime of the PRC. The signal is sent to authoritarian regimes around the world is that it is okay to violate international norms and the rule-based international order to try to intimidate and threaten and try to take over a democracy.

So I really think that Taiwan's security is everyone's security when it comes to countries in the region. And I believe the former Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo also said that as well. So if I would leave something for the people who are listening, I would encourage them to really pay attention to what's going on in Taiwan and surrounding Taiwan, because it is important for the peace and prosperity of everyone in the region and not only in the region, probably in the world as well.

Mark Harrison

And I would make a concluding comment about, we've got an election in Australia, an election campaign at the moment at the federal level. I think there's a general reluctance in our political life to talk too much about these sorts of questions. They're very, very complex questions. And I think both of our major parties have decided that there's not much political capital to be gained by getting...too drawn into these very complex debates, particularly when people are focused on domestic issues as the Taiwanese are often. But I think as a nation, we need to do more and to do better to be able to understand the events and the complex politics in our region, particularly Taiwan, so we can have a kind of informed debate around where our vulnerabilities are, the kinds of things we can do to support the Taiwanese and to recognize that.

As I said, events in Taiwan matter directly to Australia. Very complex policy problem for Australia where China could take action directed at Taiwan, not directed at Australia, but nonetheless has a direct impact on us. And I think just trying to raise our understanding around all of these questions is important for us because we're just in such an uncertain world and it doesn't look like it's going to become any more certain in the years ahead. And I think we've been in Australia through a number of decades where we I had thought that things were kind of set, you know, that the world was going in a particular direction, that everything seemed to be just so, and then all of a sudden over the last decade, particularly the last few years, it's become not that. And so I think we need to step up our capacity to understand all of that and respond dynamically, but also with principle, because these things are testing us as a nation.

Susan Dietz

Well, thank you for those insights and comments. Ketty, Mark, thanks for joining us today.

Mark Harrison

Thank you very much for the invitation.

Ketty Chen

Thank you very much, Susan.

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