West must ensure Taiwan can protect itself, Truss to tell Japan conference

There has been growing international concern over escalating tension between Beijing and Taiwan

Former British prime minister Liz Truss. AP

A Chinese sanctions package is urgently required in the event of further military escalation around Taiwan, Liz Truss will tell G7 leaders on Friday.

The former prime minister will address a conference in Japan on Friday which has been organised by the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, an international campaign group seeking to co-ordinate the response of democratic nations to Beijing.

The meeting will hear Ms Truss’s first public speech since her short and turbulent stint as prime minister ended last October, and she is expected to address growing concerns over China’s approach to Taiwan and the implications for free trade in the Indo-Pacific.

The Tory MP, who was also foreign secretary, is expected to put forward six policy recommendations, including a call for the G7 to agree urgently on a co-ordinated sanctions package to be used against Beijing in the event of further military escalation around Taiwan.

Ms Truss is also expected to recommend establishing an economic equivalent of the Nato military alliance for democratic nations should they need to respond to economic coercion, for democracies to audit and reduce dependency on China in critical industries, and to deepen economic ties with Taiwan.

Accepting Taiwan into international organisations and establishing a stronger Pacific defence alliance are also expected to be on Ms Truss’s wish list.

Liz Truss through the years — in pictures

British Prime Minister Liz Truss announces her resignation, outside No 10 Downing Street, London. AP

Liz Truss during Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Commons in London, addressing Parliament for the first time since abandoning her disastrous tax-slashing economic policies. AFP

Liz Truss walks off stage after delivering her keynote speech at the Conservative Party annual conference at the International Convention Centre in Birmingham in October. PA

Liz Truss meets US President Joe Biden during the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September. AP

King Charles during his first audience in September with Ms Truss at Buckingham Palace, London, following the death of Queen Elizabeth. Getty Images

Labour leader Keir Starmer and Liz Truss pay their respects after the service and procession for the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II into Westminster Hall, London, in September. PA

Ms Truss is welcomed by staff in Downing Street as she enters the famous prime ministerial offices for the first time in September. Photo: Andrew Parsons / No 10 Downing Street

Queen Elizabeth II greets the newly elected leader of the Conservative Party, Ms Truss, at Balmoral Castle in Scotland in September. The queen invited Ms Truss to become prime minister and form a new government. Getty Images

New Conservative Party leader and Britain's Prime Minister-elect Liz Truss delivers a speech after being announced the winner of the Tory Party leadership contest in central London on September 5, 2022. Ms Truss is the UK's third female prime minister following Theresa May and Margaret Thatcher. AFP

Liz Truss meets supporters as she arrives to attend a Conservative leadership election hustings at the NEC, Birmingham, in August. AP

Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss take part in the BBC Leadership debate at Victoria Hall in Hanley in July. Getty Images

Liz Truss playing pool during a visit to the Onside Future Youth Zone in London in August 2022. PA

Boris Johnson and Ms Truss arriving for an extraordinary summit at Nato headquarters in Brussels, in March 2022. AFP

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ms Truss arrive for talks in Moscow in February 2022. AP

Ms Truss in Red Square during a visit to Moscow in February 2022. Photo: No. 10, Downing Street

Ms Truss meeting European Commission vice-president Maros Sefcovic (not seen) for talks in central London on the Northern Ireland Protocol on 11th February 2022. PA

Ms Truss with Marise Payne, the Australian minister of foreign affairs, at Government House in Sydney, Australia, in January 2022. Photo: No. 10, Downing Street

Liz Truss hosts Vice President of the European Commission Maros Sefcovic at Chevening House in January 2022 to discuss the Northern Ireland protocol. Photo: No. 10, Downing Street

Ms Truss visits British troops in Estonia as they operate alongside other Nato troops in Tapa in November 2021. Photo: No. 10, Downing Street

Liz Truss walks through the old town in Tallinn, Estonia, in November 2021. Photo: No. 10, Downing Street

Ms Truss greeting Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the Cop26 summit in Glasgow, in November 2021. PA

Ms Truss at the Red Fort in New Delhi during a trip to India in October 2021. Photo: No. 10, Downing Street

The British foreign secretary on the Plaza de la Constitucion in Mexico City, during a trip to Mexico in September 2021. Photo: No. 10, Downing Street

Queen Elizabeth II greeting Ms Truss at a reception for international business and investment leaders at Windsor Castle in October 2021. PA

Liz Truss with Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, in New York, in September 2021. Photo: No. 10, Downing Street

Ms Truss on a morning jog over Brooklyn Bridge in New York in September 2021. Photo: No. 10, Downing Street

Former Chancellor Philip Hammond, centre, holding his red ministerial box outside 11, Downing Street, flanked by Treasury colleagues Ms Truss and Mel Stride in October 2018. PA

Ms Truss, then secretary of state for justice, being escorted around HMP Brixton by prison governor David Bamford in November 2016. PA

Ms Truss as she became the first woman ever to hold the role of Lord Chancellor, arriving at the Royal Courts of Justice before being installed in July 2016. PA

In April 2016, the former environment secretary Liz Truss listening to former chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne (not seen) during his speech at the National Composites Centre in Bristol. PA

When she was environment minister, Ms Truss visited the bridge over the River Wharfe in Tadcaster, which collapsed after heavy flooding in December 2015. Getty Images

Addressing the Conservative party conference in Birmingham in 2014 when she was secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs. Getty Images

Mr Truss on the Sawnnington Farm to Fork stand at the Norfolk Food Festival at the Houses Of Parliament in October 2011. PA

Conservative Parliamentary candidate for South-West Norfolk Elizabeth Truss, while canvassing in the village of West Walton during the 2010 General Election campaign. PA

The former Conservative Shadow Home Secretary, Dominic Grieve, centre, speaking at the launch Reform's Lawful Society report on the nature of crime and the incentives in the criminal justice system while Ms Truss looks on, in September 2008. PA

Former Conservative Leader William Hague meeting conservative candidate for Calder valley Ms Truss, during the General Election Campaign for 2005. PA

“Some people say standing up to this regime is a hopeless task, that somehow the rise of a totalitarian China is inevitable,” Ms Truss is expected to say.

“But I reject this fatalism. And the free world has a significant role to play in whether or not that happens — and how it happens.

“It wasn’t that long ago that the UK heralded a ‘golden era’ of UK-China relations. We rolled out the red carpet for the Chinese president with all the pomp and ceremony that came with a state visit.

“I should know — I attended a banquet in his honour. Looking back, I think this sent the wrong message.”

On Taiwan, she is expected to say: “We must learn from the past. We must ensure that Taiwan is able to defend itself. And we must work together across the free world to do this.”

Taiwan has its own democratically elected government and is claimed by mainland China.

The island is not recognised as a sovereign state by the UK or US, but both have called for the dispute to be resolved peacefully, and the UK does support Taiwan’s participation in international organisations as an observer.

Truss unrepentant in final speech as UK prime minister — video

There has been growing international concern over escalating tension, with China recently having held large-scale military exercises.

Taking a tougher stance on China was widely expected under Ms Truss’s leadership, but with her time as prime minister ending so quickly amid economic and political turmoil, she did not deliver on an expectation to designate China as a “threat”.

Her re-entry into the debate comes as her successor, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, is facing calls from some of his own backbenchers to take a tougher stance against Beijing.

This month, an ally of Ms Truss said her speech would be “hawkish”, and added: “She’s expected to address Sunak’s decision to brand China a strategic competitor rather than a threat.”

In November, Mr Sunak said the “golden era” of UK-Chinese relations was over but described the nation as a “systemic challenge” rather than a threat.

Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith is an Ipac member, and this week criticised the government after it emerged officials were prepared to meet Erkin Tuniyaz, the Governor of north-western Xinjiang province. It is now understood that the Governor’s trip has been cancelled.

Ms Truss’s intervention will add pressure on Mr Sunak to take a firmer line at a time when her allies are also pushing for the party to reconsider her tax-cutting agenda.

Also expected to speak at the conference in Japan are two other former prime ministers, Australia’s Scott Morrison and Belgium’s Guy Verhofstadt.