Truss urges Sunak to class China as 'threat' to UK security

Former premier curate Liz Truss has made a idiosyncratic plea for Rishi Sunak to marque China arsenic a "threat" to UK information during a sojourn to Taiwan.

The ex-prime curate challenged Mr Sunak to present connected pledges helium made past summertime to clamp down connected China.

Ms Truss made the code successful Taipei City connected Wednesday, making her the archetypal erstwhile premier curate to sojourn Taiwan since Margaret Thatcher.

The Chinese Embassy called Ms Truss's sojourn "a unsafe governmental stunt".

It added that the sojourn "will bash thing but harm to the UK".

In the speech, Ms Truss urged the West not to enactment with China, informing that totalitarian regimes "don't archer the truth".

She drew comparisons betwixt the tensions betwixt China and Taiwan, and the Russian penetration of Ukraine.

During the Conservative enactment enactment contest, Ms Truss pledged to instrumentality a steadfast stance against the Chinese government, and wanted to state China nether Communist Party regularisation a "threat" to nationalist security.

But aft her short-lived clip successful No 10, her plans were ne'er realised.

Her successor Rishi Sunak, besides declared China arsenic "the biggest-long word menace to Britain", and promised to adjacent each 30 of Beijing's Confucius Institutes successful the UK.

Confucius Institutes, which thatch Chinese connection and culture, came nether occurrence aft critics and charities accused the centres of being utilized by the Chinese authorities to spread propaganda nether the guise of teaching, interfere with escaped code connected campuses, and adjacent spy connected students.

While Mr Sunak has not closed the institutes, the UK authorities is expected to committedness that it volition halt backing Mandarin teaching astatine the centres.

In her speech, Ms Truss said Mr Sunak was "right" to marque those pledges. "We request to spot those policies enacted urgently," she added.

The premier curate updated the UK's integrated reappraisal connected overseas and defence argumentation successful March to picture China arsenic representing an "epoch-defining and systemic challenge".

In her speech, Ms Truss said the reappraisal needed to beryllium amended to "state intelligibly that China is simply a threat".

Ms Truss made the code astatine the invitation of the Prospect Foundation, a deliberation tank. It forms portion of the erstwhile UK leader's five-day sojourn to the country.

Last week, elder Conservative MP Alicia Kearns accused erstwhile Prime Minister Liz Truss of "Instagram diplomacy" implicit her planned sojourn to Taiwan.

Ms Kearns, who chairs the Commons Foreign Affairs committee, told the Guardian the travel was "performative, not substantive".

But Ms Truss accused her Tory workfellow of "misusing" her presumption "to prosecute successful petty governmental attacks", and said her sojourn aimed to amusement "solidarity" with Taiwan.

Taiwan and China divided successful 1949 pursuing a civilian warfare that ended with the Communist Party successful power of the mainland. China views Taiwan arsenic Chinese territory.