Australia wants to help Taiwan decarbonise economy

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Australia wants to help Taiwan decarbonise economy

The Australian government says it wants to help Taiwan decarbonise its economy, flagging this as the next area of cooperation with the democratically ruled island, amid ongoing tensions with China.

Taiwan has signalled its interest in pursuing a bilateral trade deal with Australia, in addition to its push to join a key regional trade pact, with its representative in Canberra presenting it as a trustworthy partner for Australia In an interview with Guardian Australia this week, Tehan did not rule out a bilateral agreement with Taiwan, but suggested Australia already had a lot on its plate when it came to trade negotiations, including finalising the UK and the EU deals.

We already have a very strong economic partnership with Taiwan and the area that we see next that we would want to progress is around the energy partnership and seeing what we can do in particular to help as Taiwan looks to decarbonise over time, Tehan said.

We see real opportunities when it comes to LNG, when it comes to liquid hydrogen, and when it comes to renewables technology, and that s the area that we re focused on at the moment. Taiwan has outlined plans to generate 20% of its energy from renewable sources by 2025, up from 5% in 2020, including a significant focus on offshore wind power.

The Australian government which has been resisting calls to strengthen its 2030 emissions reduction target and is yet to reach a deal for a mid-century net zero target has instead declared a focus on technology It has already signed deals with partners including Germany and Japan to cooperate on low-emission technology and hydrogen. Local media in Taipei said the Australian office in Taiwan had recently hosted a hydrogen trade and investment event.

Under Australia's one-China policy, it does not recognize Taiwan as a country in the international system but pursues cooperation with the island in areas such as trade, culture and education.

Both China and Taiwan have said they want to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership CPTPP which currently has 11 members including Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Singapore.

Tehan said entry into the CPTPP would depend on the ability to meet the gold standard rules Whether it is China, Taiwan or any other economies slash countries that want to accede, ultimately will be up to the membership and you need consensus amongst all the members as to who will accede and who won t, he said.

This week, Australian officials at the World Trade Organization accused Beijing of rolling out politically motivated trade actions against a wide range of Australian products over the past 18 months, including barley, coal, cotton and wine.

The Australian government said Beijing's actions had increasingly tested global trade rules and norms and increased the risk of doing business with China.

Asked whether he believed the relationship with Australia s top trading partner had moved into a permanently adversarial phase, Tehan said: Look, I hope not. He argued people in Australia and China had benefited from trade and there s a lot that we should be able to work in common on Wang Wentao said he still had not heard back from his Chinese counterpart, nine months after writing to the Commerce Minister, Tehan, requesting dialogue. We know that the letter was delivered, he said.

We re now patiently waiting to see whether we ll get a response. In an implicit message against politicising national security and foreign affairs before Australia s looming federal election, Tehan said: The more that we can make sure that we re united politically in how we tackle these current strategic issues, I think the better it is for us as a nation. The tensions with China have sparked renewed calls for Australia to diversify its trading relationships.

Tehan who visited Europe in late September on his way to New Delhi said Australia and India were planning for an early harvest trade deal by the end of this year, laying the foundations for a more comprehensive agreement by the end of 2022.

He acknowledged Australia s push for access to agricultural exports to India presented obvious sensitivities so Canberra needed to make sure that our expectations are reasonable.