Britain’s former Prime Minister Liz Truss leaves her home on Feb. 5, 2023, in London. (Carl Court/Getty Images/TNS)
(Tribune News Service) — Former British Prime Minister Liz Truss will warn Western nations not to appease China over its claims to Taiwan, following a series of Chinese military exercises around the island.
“We need to make sure Taiwan is able to defend itself,” the U.K.’s shortest-serving leader is due to say in a speech during a visit to Washington on Wednesday. “We need to put economic pressure on China before it is too late.”
Truss, who is also a former U.K. foreign secretary, has kept a relatively low profile since her premiership imploded last year, when her economic plan triggered market turmoil and she lost the confidence of her Conservative Party.
But she has continued to make interventions in support of her agenda, which includes a hawkish stance on China. It’s awkward for her successor, Rishi Sunak, whose more pragmatic approach to the U.K.’s relations with Beijing has riled a significant Tory faction that includes Truss.
During the “Margaret Thatcher Freedom Lecture” at the Heritage Foundation free-market think tank, Truss will say “too many” in the West have “appeased and accommodated” authoritarian regimes such as China and Russia.
She will also say that Western nations shouldn’t look to China for help stopping Russia’s war in Ukraine, remarks that are likely to be seen as a critique of French President Emmanuel Macron, who urged China’s Xi Jinping to use his influence to help end the conflict last week.
“It is a sign of weakness,” Truss will say, according to her office.
Despite being forced out of office in a record 49 days last October, Truss has not backed away from the combative style that took her to 10 Downing Street. During the Tory leadership campaign, she infamously said the jury was still out on whether Macron was a friend or a foe — despite France being a key U.K. ally.
She has also not changed her mind about the low-tax agenda that triggered her downfall. In her speech she is also expected to say that the “Anglo-American” economic model is being “strangled into stagnation,” and that the OECD-led minimum tax agreement is a “global cartel of complacency.”
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