Liz Truss in Taiwan calls for ‘economic Nato’ to challenge China
Free nations must commit themselves to a free Taiwan and must be prepared to back it up with concrete measures, Liz Truss has said in a keynote speech in Taipei, in which she called for an “economic Nato” to tackle Beijing’s growing authoritarianism.
The former British prime minister said she had come to show support for Taiwan, which was “on the frontline of the global battle for freedom”, under threat from a totalitarian regime in China. Truss arrived in Taiwan on Monday for a five-day visit, and is expected to meet senior government officials.
Truss, who was prime minister for 49 days in 2022 after serving as foreign secretary for the year prior, is the most senior British politician to make the trip since Margaret Thatcher, and drew a rebuke from China’s UK embassy, which said the visit was “a dangerous political show which will do nothing but harm to the UK”.
Beijing claims Taiwan as a province of China, and Xi Jinping has not ruled out using force to achieve what he terms “reunification”. Taiwan’s government and people overwhelmingly reject the prospect of Chinese rule, and a potential conflict and its fallout are of key concern to the global community.
“We cannot pretend we have meaningful deterrence without hard power,” Truss said in a speech and panel discussion for a Taiwan thinktank, the Prospect Foundation, on Wednesday. “If we’re serious about preventing conflict in the South China Sea we need to get real about defence cooperation.”
Truss said the world could not rely on the UN security council or the World Trade Organization, and instead called for a “network of liberty”, with free nations working together to develop an “economic Nato” to coordinate pushback against Beijing.
She said the G7 – which will meet this
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