‘I admired Thatcher’s work to end the Cold War – and the case she made for democracy’
Liz Truss has a complicated relationship with Margaret Thatcher. As a child of Left-wing parents who campaigned against nuclear weapons, she remembers joining in with chants of “Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, out, out, out!” during Scottish protests.
But as she has formed her own political identity in adulthood and risen through the Conservative ranks, Ms Truss has become something of a keeper of the Iron Lady’s flame.
Now, one month into her role as Foreign Secretary – the first Tory woman to hold the post – colleagues are wondering if she is one day destined to follow Thatcher into the top job.
Speaking to The Daily Telegraph from India, as part of a four-day diplomatic blitz also taking in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Ms Truss says she sees relevance in Thatcher’s approach to foreign policy.
“Margaret Thatcher was a fantastic prime minister. We’re now in a completely different age,” she says, pointing out that the Chinese economy then was one tenth the size of America’s.
“But what I admired hugely about Mrs Thatcher is the work she did to end the Cold War,” she adds.
“We’re now at the 30th anniversary of countries like Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia becoming independent and becoming freedom-loving democracies again.
“I think what she did in helping make that happen, and putting the positive case for freedom and democracy, really, really changed history.”
It is that drive – the willingness to use Britain’s foreign policy levers to defend freedom and democracy – that underpin the approach Ms Truss, 48, vows to bring to her new role.
During the interview, she unpacks how she intends to apply that approach to perhaps the biggest foreign policy challenge of the 21st century: a rising China.
As a former international trade secretary and chief secretary to the
‘We’re winning the battle for economic influence for those countries that believe in free enterprise and democracy’
Treasury, Ms Truss wants to put economic links at the heart of the Government’s approach to foreign relations.
She calls it a drive to “build a network of liberty around the world with like-minded partners” – in other words, a coalition of the willing to push an economic and social model which is very different to that in China.
“We’re winning the battle for economic influence for those countries that believe in free enterprise, that believe in democracy, as opposed to non-market economies which include China,” she says.
The stance chimes with Joe Biden’s vision of getting Western nations to build their own version of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which funds vast infrastructure projects overseas and thereby ties nations closer to Beijing.
But this position should not be mistaken for all-out hostility to China. Under Boris Johnson, the Government has adopted a nuanced – critics would say contradictory – approach to China, wishing to continue trading while thwarting any overreach.
How does Ms Truss balance those ambitions? “The way I would put it is that of course we trade with China – it’s an important trading partner of the UK,” she says. “But it’s important that we don’t become strategically dependent.”
The real challenge comes when applying those principles to real life. Three areas are of particular interest – nuclear, new-generation technology and supply chains.
The Johnson Government sees nuclear power as a key part of moving the UK onto cleaner energy in the hope of hitting “net zero” carbon emissions by 2050.
However, the China General Nuclear Power Group, a state-owned company, is involved in building the Hinkley Point C plant in Somerset and wants to help construct a new Sizewell C plant in Suffolk.
So would Ms Truss not want to see Chinese state-owned companies building new nuclear plants in the UK?
She responds: “I think it’s very important that we don’t become strategically dependent and I think it’s important that we make sure that we’re working, particularly in areas of critical national infrastructure, with reliable partners.”
It sounds like a no. Asked explicitly a second time, she gives a similar reply.
What about new technologies? One of the biggest bust-ups between the UK and US governments under Donald Trump’s presidency was over 5G.
Britain initially wanted to use Huawei, a Chinese technology company, to help construct its 5G networks but the Trump administration feared the Chinese state could influence it, potentially gaining access to sensitive data.
After rounds of heated discussions and explicit threats of consequences from Washington, Mr Johnson back-tracked by announcing a plan to reduce Huawei’s involvement.
One key issue was that the West had failed to develop enough competitive, cheap rivals to Huawei, limiting the choices. It is a scenario Ms Truss appears keen not to repeat.
Britain will invest £1.6 million in a scheme to support closer Uk-india working on 5G telecoms, allowing smaller firms to enter the market and introduce more competition.
“It is very important that we don’t become strategically dependent on high-risk vendors in this space,” Ms Truss says. It is a principle she applies to more technologies of the future.
“There are other areas like quantum, artificial intelligence, cyber security where we need to make sure the partners we’re innovating with are reliable and there is a bond of trust there.”
A third area of concern is supply chains. Britain’s manufacturers and shoppers have become reliant on a constant flow of cheap products from China, but Covid-19 challenged that.
Ms Truss says: “What we saw during the Covid crisis is whether it’s a particular supply chain for pharmaceutical products or for technology products, it’s important that we have a diversity of supply.”
Building trade links with countries in Asia that are more aligned to the UK, such as India and Vietnam, is likely to be a key drive for the Foreign Office in the coming years.
Touching on her previous trade brief, Ms Truss says the UK joining the Trans-pacific Partnership trade bloc, if entry is approved, should help on this front.
She is also upbeat on progress towards a Uk-india free trade deal, though declines to predict whether an agreement can be struck by the end of next year, saying that setting public timelines is unhelpful.
Before the end of the interview, there is time for a domestic topic – tax. Ms Truss was one of just three Cabinet ministers to challenge the Prime Minister on his manifesto-breaking tax rise last month.
So presumably, with the Budget to be revealed next week, she does not want more tax rises before the next election. Ms Truss gives a careful reply.
“The way we are going to recover from the Covid pandemic – because this applies across the world – is by more enterprise, more opportunities and more economic growth. And tax is of course one element of that. Trade is another element.”
The restrained comments will be welcomed by Chancellor Rishi Sunak, that other senior Conservative often tipped for the top job. But they hint that Ms Truss, like Lady T, is a low-tax Tory at heart.
‘It’s very important that we don’t become strategically dependent on high-risk vendors [such as China]’