James Paterson, Angus Taylor call out US' demand to Australia on China-Taiwan conflict
It follows reports Australian officials had been questioned by Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby.
First reported in the Financial Times on Saturday, the news up-ended the start of Anthony Albanese's six-day trip in China, ahead of his Tuesday meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
It has also sparked questions as to whether Australia would be asked to deploy any Virgina-class submarines acquired under the AUKUS deal in the event of a conflict.
Mr Colby is also leading the review into the defence partnership.
Senator Paterson said that as the US had not declared whether it would come to Taiwan's aid if it faced an invasion from China, Australia should not have to either.
'It's had that policy consistently since 1979 - when the Taiwan Relations Act passed Congress - so it wouldn't be appropriate for the US government to ask Australia to do more than the United States is willing to do in relation to that,' he told ABC RN on Tuesday.
'And I'm not sure ... what they're asking for is for us to pre-emptively and publicly declare what we would do in the event of a hypothetical Taiwan contingency.'
Senator Patterson said while Australia's interests were clearly about deterring and preventing conflict, potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan posed 'the greatest risk'.
'That would be disastrous for Taiwan, for China, for the whole region and the world, and we should be working as hard as we can with our allies to prevent that,' he said.
Coalition defence spokesman Angus Taylor said it was not possible or realistic to 'codify every possible scenario around a conflict'.
'The Americans won't do that, and nor will we,' he said.
'What we can do is jointly commit to peace through strength and deterrence in the Taiwan Strait (and) in our region more generally - that's what we all want to see.'
Mr Taylor said the Prime Minister needed to be clearer about Australia's strategic position as China pursues 'a massive military build-up'.
'We have to be clear about where our strategic position is, jointly working with allies like the United States and Japan and India and others across our region to make sure we have that peace through strength,' he told Sky.
'Deterrence is an absolute priority right now, and yet it seems that the priority of this Prime Minister is to is to meet with the President of China, rather than the President of the United States'.
He also criticised Labor for not heeding calls from the US to boost defence spending from 2 per cent to 3.5 per cent, and pointed to the Coalition's election commitment to increase investment to 3 per cent by 2030.
Labor will instead boost spending to 2.33 per cent by 2033.
Mr Taylor said Mr Albanese was 'not prepared' to admit the defence strategic review and critical facilities such as Western Australia's proposed submarine facility in Henderson were not properly funded.
'That's simply not good enough at a time like this,' he said.
Originally published as James Paterson says it 'wouldn't be appropriate' for US to demand Australia's response to China-Taiwan conflict
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