Interview with Allison Langdon, Today Show, Channel Nine

LANGDON: I want to move on because there’s another very serious issue taking place to our north, China conducting live fire exercises around Taiwan. That, of course, follows US Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s pretty divisive visit. I mean, Richard, this is a serious escalation. Do you think the visit by such a senior US politician was an unnecessary provocation?

DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER: Well, the visit of Speaker Pelosi is really a matter between the United States and Taiwan. Certainly, the reports that we’ve seen around China’s use of ballistic missiles is a concerning set of reports. We want to see de-escalation of tensions here. From Australia’s point of view, we will obviously come to this in a very calm and measured way which seeks to play our part in de-escalation. We don’t want to see any unilateral change to the status quo across the Taiwan Straits, and that has to be the position which underpins the way in which we engage and that’s really been the bipartisan position of Governments in Australia now for some time.