Truss slams China’s stance over US visit
FOREIGN Secretary Liz Truss has criticised China’s ‘inflammatory’ response to a senior US politician’s visit to Taiwan.
Tensions with China have been heightened by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to the island.
Beijing responded by announcing multiple military exercises around the island, parts of which will enter Taiwanese waters.
Taiwan has been self-governing since nationalist forces fled there in 1949 after the communists took control of China.
It is considered to be a rebel province by China, which claims the island as its territory and opposes any engagement by Taiwanese officials with foreign governments.
Ms Truss, speaking on a Conservative Party leadership campaign visit in Ludlow, Shropshire, said: “I do not support China’s inflammatory language on this issue.
“It’s perfectly reasonable what is taking place and I urge China to de-escalate.”
Conservative MP Alicia Kearns said the Chinese Communist Party has tried to make Ms Pelosi’s visit a ‘flashpoint,’ telling BBC Radio 4’s World At One: “Because they’ve placed this enormous strategic importance on the visit when they could actually have just dismissed it out of hand as nothing more than a political stunt or a low-level
delegation. But they’re choosing to use it to draw a line in the sand and I think that shows how worried they are and how important this is for Xi Jinping as he attempts to reconsolidate his position going into the 20th national congress of the Chinese Communist Party.”
Ms Kearns confirmed the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, of which she is a member, intends to visit Taiwan later this year.
She said: “I think the reason for going, and it was me that suggested that we should visit as a Foreign Affairs Committee, is we visit allies all over the world, we also visit our friends and we try to understand the biggest issues facing our country and also international security.”
In June, Ms Truss called on Western allies to provide greater support for Taiwan so it can defend itself in the event of an attack from China.
Ms Truss, when asked if this meant providing arms, replied at the time: “There are different ways of doing that, and Finland and Sweden have joined Nato as a way of making sure that they are defended.
“Ultimately, it is making sure that those countries have the capabilities that they need.”
Conservative former minister Brandon Lewis was pressed on whether Ms Truss believes that Taiwan should be supplied with defensive weapons.
Mr Lewis, a supporter of Ms Truss’s bid to be come the next Conservative Party leader and prime minister, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I think one of the things we’ve seen with Ukraine is the fact that it’s important that we are supporting sovereign democracies, that’s something we’ve got to do.”