If Liz Truss is elected prime minister the next week, she is expected to label China a “threat” to national security.
Should she win the Tory leadership election, the candidate is prepared to reassess British foreign policy by giving China a status equal to that of Russia.
In the “integrated review” from the previous year, Russia was labelled as a “acute danger” to UK security.
If Ms. Truss takes Boris Johnson’s position at Number 10, it has been said that she would categorise China in the same terms.
Her supporters applauded the Foreign Secretary’s decision to concentrate on the danger that Beijing poses.
Some of the House of Commons’ most vociferous opponents of China, including former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith and Tom Tugendhat, head of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, are supporting her leadership candidacy.
However, Lord Ricketts, a former national security advisor, said that, in contrast to Britain’s attitude on Russia, a more “nuanced” approach was required with regard to China.
The Times reports that Ms. Truss would take a more aggressive stance against China in a bid to rein down Treasury attempts to improve business ties with Beijing.
A new economic pact with China was allegedly on the verge of being signed when Rishi Sunak, Ms. Truss’s Tory competitor for the party’s top job, was the country’s chancellor.
‘Liz has stiffened the UK’s attitude on Beijing since becoming Foreign Secretary and will continue to adopt a robust posture as PM,’ a Truss campaign insider reportedly told the newspaper.
As a response to China’s Belt and Road programme, she has been actively criticising China’s economic coercion and working with the G7 and other allies to mobilise investment into low- and middle-income nations.
Should she be elected prime minister, Ms. Truss has already pledged to update the integrated review from last year with a fresh emphasis on China and Russia.
The dispute about whether Mr. Sunak wanted better economic ties with China when he was Treasury head is only one of the many flashpoints in the contest for No. 10 between Ms. Truss and Mr. Sunak.
As a candidate for prime minister, Mr. Sunak has likewise pledged to take a harsh position against Beijing and has already accused his competitor of facilitating Chinese infiltration of British colleges.
If he is elected prime minister, the former Chancellor has promised to shut down all Confucius Institutes, which are affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party and teach Mandarin in colleges and schools.
Nine of the 31 Confucius centres in Britain were established between 2012 and 2014, while Ms. Truss served as education minister, according to his campaign staff.
However, Mr. Sunak’s assertion was refuted by the Foreign Secretary’s staff, who noted that Michael Gove, who recently made known his support for the former Chancellor, was in charge of the education department at the time.
The Global Times, China’s biggest state-run tabloid daily, was praised by Ms. Truss’ friends for publishing Mr. Sunak’s “pragmatic position” on enhancing commercial ties between London and Beijing.
The Foreign Secretary came under fire earlier this month when a tape of her lamenting that British employees lack “corruption” surfaced.
She was overheard disparagingly contrasting the “working culture” of employees in the UK outside of London with that of Chinese immigrants.
Russia was identified as “the most urgent danger to our security” in the 2021 comprehensive assessment of Britain’s security, defence, development, and foreign policy.
China, on the other hand, was referred to as posing a “systemic threat” to the security, prosperity, and values of the UK.
The study concluded, “While maintaining the protection of our national security and principles, we will continue to seek a constructive trade and investment partnership with China.”
In order to combat global issues like climate change, “We will also work with China.”
Reclassifying China as a “threat” was, in the words of Ms. Truss’ supporter Conor Burns, “the appropriate thing to say,” according to the minister for the Northern Ireland Office.
He said, “I believe it’s typical of Liz that she speaks as she finds,” during yesterday night’s Westminster Hour broadcast of BBC Radio 4.
She always came across like way to me at the Department of International Trade.
She didn’t go out of her way to negotiate trade deals or proclaim that ties with China were in a “golden period” when she was there.
She had a very harsh exterior and a hard brain.
Lord Ricketts agreed that Beijing was “the main challenge for the coming generation,” but he cautioned that a more “nuanced” strategy was required.
China is the main danger to the next generation, according to the cross-bench Lord who worked as David Cameron’s national security advisor in Downing Street. The current short-term problem is with Russia. But focusing on China is absolutely appropriate.
The ability to do business with what is, after all, one of the biggest and most active marketplaces in the world must be balanced with being very attentive about security and tough on human rights.
Therefore, the mixture we must create is complex. I’m not convinced that stating it as a threat is the most effective course of action.
But she [Ms. Truss] is absolutely correct to highlight China as a significant problem.
When Chinese President Xi Jinping paid a state visit to London in 2015, Mr. Cameron used the occasion to declare a “golden era” in bilateral ties.