Former British Prime Minister, Liz Truss has cautioned about the economic and political threats posed by China to the West during a visit to Taiwan.
Truss is the first former British Prime Minister since Margaret Thatcher to visit Taiwan.
Still a sitting member of the House of Commons, Truss follows a growing list of elected representatives and former officials from the U.S., EU nations and elsewhere who have visited Taiwan to show their defiance of China’s threats and attempts to cut off the island and its high-tech economy from the international community.
In an address to the Prospect Foundation at a hotel in the Taiwanese capital, Taipei on Wednesday, May 17, 2023, Truss averred, “There are those who say they don’t want another Cold War.”
“But this is not a choice we are in a position to make. Because China has already embarked on a self-reliance drive, whether we want to decouple from their economy or not. China is growing its navy at an alarming rate and is undertaking the biggest military build-up in peacetime history.”
“They have already formed alliances with other nations that want to see the free world in decline. They have already made a choice about their strategy. The only choice we have is whether we appease and accommodate — or we take action to prevent conflict.”
Liz Truss
Additionally, Truss praised her successor, Rishi Sunak, for describing China as “the biggest long-term threat to Britain” in comments last summer.
Truss, who served an ill-fated seven weeks as Prime Minister last year, also said China could not be trusted to follow through on its commitments in areas from trade to protection of the environment.
Also, Truss lauded Taiwan as “an enduring rebuke to totalitarianism” whose fate was a “core interest” to Europe. “A blockade or invasion of Taiwan would undermine freedom and democracy in Europe. Just as a Russian victory in Ukraine would undermine freedom and democracy in the Pacific,” Truss said.
“We in the United Kingdom and the free world must do all we can to back you,” she added.
In the speech, Truss urged the West not to work with China, warning that totalitarian regimes “don’t tell the truth”.
Truss Urges UK To Back Taiwan In Joining CPTPP Trade Agreement
Moreover, Truss called on the UK government to support Taiwan in joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) trade agreement- and for it to block China from joining.
The former Prime Minister also called for the development of “an economic NATO”, which “supports freedom and proper free enterprise”. She suggested countries including the G7 nations, members of the EU, South Korea and Australia could join this kind of group.
“We cannot rely now on the UN security council, which was recently chaired by Putin’s Russia. We cannot rely on the World Trade Organisation to make sure fair trade rules are in place. That’s why we need other alternatives to get things done.”
Liz Truss
However, the Chinese Embassy called Truss’s visit “a dangerous political stunt”. It added that the visit “will do nothing but harm to the UK”.
China’s relations with Britain and most other Western democracies have been in steep decline in recent years, largely as a result of disputes over human rights, trade technology and China’s aggressive moves toward Taiwan and in the South China Sea.
Beijing’s relations with London have been especially bitter over China’s sweeping crackdown on free speech, democracy and other civil liberties in Hong Kong, a former British colony that was promised it would retain its freedoms after the handover to Chinese rule in 1997.
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