We’ll stand by you: Pearce

MP’s flag gift to Taiwan President

TASMANIAN Liberal MP Gavin Pearce says Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-Wen was brought to tears when he presented her with an Australian flag on a parliamentary delegation to the country earlier this month.

Mr Pearce was one of six Australian MPs who travelled to Taiwan, which Beijing considers a breakaway province.

He was joined by Nationals MP and former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce, Liberal National Party MPs Scott Buchholz and Terry Young, and Labor MPs Meryl Swanson and Libby Coker.

The Braddon MP said he spent 20 minutes with Ms Tsai and gifted her an Australian flag – a gesture he said made the President emotional.

“I … mentioned that in my 20 years of service in the military, I served in East Timor, where that country and those beautiful people were being oppressed by a tyrant, an organisation of militia that were killing their people and bombing them,” Mr Pearce told the Mercury.

“And I wore that flag on my shoulder when I stood in front of those people and protected them. And that’s what we do in our region – we stand by our mates and we protect not only our interests but we look after our mates. It’s what we do as Australians.

“And I presented the flag. And the President, a tear ran down her cheek.

“She understood completely that the co-operation that we have in our region, not only the Indo-Pacific region but the Asia-Pacific region more broadly, is a very important one. And it’s not just us that needs to collaborate and co-operate and stand by them.”

Mr Pearce said he also had talks with representatives of the Taiwanese government about increasing Tasmanian exports to the country, including cherries, southern rock lobster, and greenlip and blacklip abalone.

Taiwan is Tasmania’s fifthlargest trading partner, with exports to the country totalling $233m in 2020-21.

The December delegation was the first time since 2019 that a group of sitting parliamentarians had visited Taiwan. In the lead-up to the trip, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese stressed that it was not an official government visit.

However, the delegation angered Beijing, with Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece, The Global Times, publishing a scathing opinion piece describing the visit as “reckless” and “anti-China”.

But Mr Pearce said he supported the status quo in the Taiwan Strait and that the delegation was not intended to “provoke China”.

“I certainly wasn’t there to poke sticks in China’s backdoor,” he said.