Former Australian PM Scott Morrison to speak at Taipei security forum

Taipei, Oct. 6 (CNA) Former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Matt Schlapp, former political director to United States President George W. Bush, are among those set to speak at a Taipei security forum on Wednesday, the organizer announced Monday.

Morrison, who served as the 30th Australian prime minister from 2018-2022, and Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union, will join other former American officials, including Van D. Hipp Jr., a former U.S. Army deputy assistant secretary, and Peter Su, the ex-Taiwan country director at the Pentagon's Office of Secretary of Defense, at the 2025 Taipei Security Dialogue, organized by the Institute for National Defense and Security Research (INDSR), the INDSR said in a press release.

The INDSR's annual forum brings together experts and leaders from the U.S., the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan and Australia, to address the threat posed by China to peace in the Indo-Pacific, the Taiwan military-funded think tank said.

Other guests set to attend the one-day seminar in Taipei include Takahiro Sasaki, a retired rear admiral of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force; Karsten Schneider, a retired rear admiral of the German Navy; and Peter Olive, a former commodore in the Royal Navy, among others, according to the INDSR.

The seminar will be divided into several different topics, spanning social resilience and defense deterrence, and the trends and impact of new technologies such as AI and Unmanned Aircraft Systems as tools of war, among others, it said.

The scholars and opinion leaders will each provide suggestions as to how best to jointly build consensus and enhance cooperation between democracies to uphold peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region, it added.