Taiwan knows a pathetic hypocrite when it sees it:
Taiwan has urged Penny Wong to throw Australia’s support behind the self-governed territory’s bid for UN membership after the Albanese government backed Palestine’s admission to the global body.
Taiwan’s top diplomat in Australia, Douglas Hsu, said Palestine’s recently upgraded UN status underscored the injustice of Taiwan’s exclusion from the organisation at China’s behest.
“We found it very interesting and we found it very unreasonable, because Taiwan is a leading democracy,” he told The Australian.
The analogy is less straightforward.
Israel is a democracy. Hamas and its control of Gaza are not. Fatah’s control of the West Bank is closer but not very democratic, either.
So, Australia is backing a semi-authoritarian, self-governed territory for UN membership versus a democracy.
In Taiwan, it is the opposite but Australia still won’t back it.
Sadly for Taiwan, there are only 50k of its natives in Australia versus 1.4m of Chinese heritage.
The problem for Israel is similar. Only 120k Jews versus 800k Muslims.
The upstanding Penny Wong fashions foreign policy around votes at home.
Not issues abroad.
