{"id":258420,"date":"2022-09-09T06:50:33","date_gmt":"2022-09-09T06:50:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=258420"},"modified":"2022-09-10T07:03:44","modified_gmt":"2022-09-10T07:03:44","slug":"liz-truss-to-contain-china-and-russia-amid-massive-internal-problems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=258420","title":{"rendered":"Liz Truss to contain China and Russia amid massive internal problems"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ahmed Adel \u2013 Aletho News Sept 7, 2022<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Liz Truss as British Prime Minister does not bode well for peace in the Asia-Pacific region as her stance on foreign policy is quite predictable.\u00a0During her tenure as Foreign Secretary in Boris Johnson\u2019s cabinet,\u00a0Liz Truss obviously spoke many times on foreign policy issues, but often in a manner that seemingly appeared she wanted a revival of the British Empire.\u00a0In fact, the British press called her the most hawkish politician in the Conservative government.<\/p>\n

Her so-called toughness is especially evident in her stance towards Russia and China.\u00a0For Liz Truss, both Russia and China are threats to humanity. Despite having this belief, it is evident that she in fact knows very little about these countries, especially when we consider that she had\u00a0earlier this year confused Russian regions\u00a0with Ukrainian territory and even more recently said Ukraine had survived a lot of invasions \u2013 \u201cfrom the Mongols to the Tatars\u201d, without realising Mongols and Tatars are one and the same.<\/p>\n

And in this light, it is remembered that a year ago an official British document described China as a \u201csystemic competitor\u201d. With such a view, it is not surprising that London has created a lot of problems in its China policy.\u00a0The British government condemned Beijing for its human rights violations in its western Xinjiang Autonomous Region, expressed dissatisfaction with Beijing\u2019s \u201cSecurity Law\u201d for Hong Kong, and even welcomed the visit of American politicians to Taiwan.\u00a0All of these provocations naturally aggravate Beijing.<\/p>\n

This conservative approach could interfere with normal economic and trade relations between the two countries, which are contradictorily important to Britain as China is its third largest trading partner. Rather, by inflating anti-China sentiment, the British government wants to distract people from the country\u2019s massive internal problems: high inflation, rising fuel prices and increasing poverty.<\/p>\n

It is clear that\u00a0Liz Truss will continue the anti-China line\u00a0of her predecessors.\u00a0Her newly appointed foreign secretary, James Cleverly, has vowed to take a tough stance on Russia and China.<\/p>\n

According to Jonathan Sullivan, director of China programmes at Nottingham University\u2019s Asia Research Institute, Britain\u2019s so-called \u201cpragmatic diplomacy\u201d has lost its reputation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn ordinary circumstances, I\u2019d say the new PM would ultimately pursue a more realistic and balanced approach to foreign affairs once in office, but the UK\u2019s reputation for pragmatic diplomacy has taken a battering in recent years,\u201d he said. \u201cLabelling a major trade partner a threat would be a remarkable development, but the fact that it is not totally inconceivable speaks to the uncertainties that exist around Truss and the negative momentum that has built up around UK-China relations.\u201d<\/p>\n

None-the-less, it is ridiculous to hear the British talk about a so-called Chinese threat considering the country has not been at war since 1974. Meanwhile, during that period, Britain has battled in the Falklands War, Gulf War, Operation Desert Fox, the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the Libyan and Syrian wars, among others.<\/p>\n

After Brexit, the UK wanted to prove that it was still a great and relevant power without the EU and participate in global processes.\u00a0One of these points is the South China Sea, where the UK plans to gain a foothold.\u00a0Under previous Conservative prime ministers, it was expressed that the British Navy needed a regular presence in the South China Sea.\u00a0They also plan to build UK naval bases in the region, like in Brunei.<\/p>\n

So far, there are no permanent bases, but last year the British Navy\u2019s newest and most powerful aircraft carrier, Queen Elizabeth II, sailed through the South China Sea.\u00a0Certainly, under the Truss government, British warships will patrol these waters only for the sake of provoking China.\u00a0There is an external reason for this \u2013 like the Americans, the British would claim that they are sending their fleet to distant lands to ensure \u201cfreedom of navigation\u201d off China.<\/p>\n

In addition, the desire to play an important role in the Indo-Pacific region is demonstrated by the UK\u2019s participation in the new military bloc AUKUS, established in September 2021. There is no doubt that\u00a0the Liz Truss government\u00a0will continue to commit to its obligations under this alliance with the US and Australia.<\/p>\n

All this goes against the vital interests of China and the wider East Asia region.\u00a0But it is likely that the British prime minister will go in this direction. The question is whether she will be able to achieve her objectives in containing the Rise of China, something that is seemingly unlikely.<\/p>\n

It is recalled that only days ago the Indian economy surpassed that of Britain, meaning that the former colonial master has slipped to sixth place in the global GDP ranking, with India rising to fifth place. This also comes as research has found that two-thirds of UK families could be in fuel poverty by January. With compounding economic and societal issues, it appears that Truss will continue in the same mould of Boris Johnson in not dealing with this and instead prioritise the attempt to maintain Britain\u2019s relevancy in the world.<\/p>\n

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.<\/em><\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We suspect that Liz Truss was selected to lead the ruling Conservative Party with a view to her leading the UK into a clash with Russia. If this does indeed develop into a full military confrontation then Truss has been cast to repeat the role Thatcher played during the Falklands War. Only this time against a much more formidable opponent <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":257793,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[78,61,91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-258420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-china","category-Commentary","category-russia"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=258420"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":258444,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258420\/revisions\/258444"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/257793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=258420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=258420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=258420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}