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Fifty prominent Australians, including former foreign ministers Bob Carr and Gareth Evans, are calling on the Albanese government to take an “activist middle power” role to reduce tensions between Australia’s largest trading partner and major military ally.
The group outlined their plan in a public statement which stressed they were “apprehensive these tensions may lead to direct military conflict, which would risk dragging Australia into war”.
“We support a balance of power in the Indo-Pacific region in which the United States and China respect and recognise each other as equals,” the group, who also include English-Australian actor Miriam Margolyes and former Australian football international Craig Foster, wrote.
They argued the key to preventing future conflict between the US and China was for the superpowers to commit to “cooperative security”, in which neither country demands supremacy.
What’s needed was a “new detente”, or a reduction in hostile relations, the group said.
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Their statement referenced how a similar policy between the US and Soviet Russia in the 1970s helped ease Cold War tensions.
It also called for a “de-escalation of tensions over Taiwan with acceptance by both sides of the need for open-ended commitment to the cross-strait status quo”.
The self-governing island remains a diplomatic stumbling block between Washington and Beijing.
China regards the island as a renegade territory and has pledged to reunite it with the mainland.
But the US, Australia and other western nations have sought to deter any use of force to change the status quo over Taiwan.
The group said its aims were not “pacifism or appeasement” but about seeking peace and prosperity for all nations in the Pacific region.
