David Spencer is co-founder and Chief Executive of the Taiwan Policy Centre.
This time last week, the issue that Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss chose to have a go at each over was China.
Sunak set the ball rolling by describing the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as “the largest threat to Britain and the world’s security and prosperity” and announcing a four-point plan to address that threat.
He has pledged to close all 30 of China’s Confucius Institutes in the UK, build a new international alliance of free nations to tackle Chinese cyber-threats and share best practice in technology security, counter Chinese industrial espionage, and prevent Chinese acquisitions of key British assets.
Not much to argue with there, even if it is all a little bit vague and generic.
Truss’s team bit back hard, with Iain Duncan Smith asking where this side of Sunak had been for the past two years when, on his watch, the Treasury has been pushing for human rights considerations to be put to one side in the name of closer trading relations with the PRC.
Cue the sort of sniping between rival camps that looks set to be the hallmark of this leadership campaign.
All the while, there is a rather large elephant in the room when it comes to policy towards the PRC. Something which James Forsyth rightly described in The Spectator earlier this week as “the most important geo-strategic issue of this decade”: Taiwan.
The Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, is expected to visit Taiwan this week and meet with Taiwan’s democratically elected President Tsai Ing-wen. Her visit has been in the pipeline for months and China has objected to it loudly and threatened a military response if she goes.
It remains to be seen whether this is more sabre rattling, as seems likely, or something more serious. The UK has remained silent on the issue.
Speaking the previous week at the Aspen Security Forum, Bill Burns, the director of the CIA, warned countries “not to underestimate President Xi’s determination to assert China’s control” over Taiwan. His assessment was that “the risks of that become higher, it seems to us, the further into this decade that you get.”
Just a couple of weeks earlier Christopher Wray, the director of the FBI, and Ken McCallum, the head of MI5, made an unprecedented joint appearance to warn of the threat China poses to the West.
Wray used the event to say of Taiwan: “I don’t have any reason to think [the PRC’s] interest in Taiwan has abated in any fashion”, before adding that an invasion of Taiwan would “represent one of the most horrific business disruptions the world has ever seen.”
In our recent report, the Taiwan Policy Centre noted the increased impact that a PRC invasion of Taiwan would have on the world as well as examining the impact that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has had on their planning.
We are reassured to see that the world’s biggest and best intelligence agencies are on the same page as us.
Yet so far both leadership contenders have remained tight-lipped when it comes to their policy towards Taiwan. This is no great surprise given the record of the Johnson administration of which they were both key members.
Quite astonishingly, the Government’s Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy did not contain a single mention of Taiwan in its 111 pages.
We think it is right and proper that the two people vying off to be the next Prime Minister are clear about their approach to the biggest geo-political challenge of our time.
Which is why we have written an open to Sunak and Truss putting eight clear and simple question to them:
- What steps will your government take to reduce the risk of a PRC invasion of Taiwan?
- How will your government help Taiwan to acquire the military equipment and expertise it needs to defend itself against the threat of invasion?
- If the PRC were to invade Taiwan while you were Prime Minister, what would your government’s response be?
- What will your government’s position be on the ‘One China’ policy?
- What steps will your government take to assist Taiwan’s participation in international bodies where its 23 million people are currently unrepresented?
- Will your government support Taiwan’s application to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) should the UK’s own application be successful?
- Will Ministerial visits to and from Taiwan be permitted under your government?
- Do you agree that the Taiwanese people have the right to self-determination under the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, and that they alone should decide what the future of Taiwan and their relationship with the PRC should be?
Their responses to these eight questions will tell us far more about how serious Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss about dealing with the Chinese Communist Party now and in the future, than the idle sniping that we have seen this week.
Both will be published in full on our website and we will also update ConHome readers on exactly where your two leadership candidate stand on this vitally important issue.
David Spencer is co-founder and Chief Executive of the Taiwan Policy Centre.
This time last week, the issue that Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss chose to have a go at each over was China.
Sunak set the ball rolling by describing the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as “the largest threat to Britain and the world’s security and prosperity” and announcing a four-point plan to address that threat.
He has pledged to close all 30 of China’s Confucius Institutes in the UK, build a new international alliance of free nations to tackle Chinese cyber-threats and share best practice in technology security, counter Chinese industrial espionage, and prevent Chinese acquisitions of key British assets.
Not much to argue with there, even if it is all a little bit vague and generic.
Truss’s team bit back hard, with Iain Duncan Smith asking where this side of Sunak had been for the past two years when, on his watch, the Treasury has been pushing for human rights considerations to be put to one side in the name of closer trading relations with the PRC.
Cue the sort of sniping between rival camps that looks set to be the hallmark of this leadership campaign.
All the while, there is a rather large elephant in the room when it comes to policy towards the PRC. Something which James Forsyth rightly described in The Spectator earlier this week as “the most important geo-strategic issue of this decade”: Taiwan.
The Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, is expected to visit Taiwan this week and meet with Taiwan’s democratically elected President Tsai Ing-wen. Her visit has been in the pipeline for months and China has objected to it loudly and threatened a military response if she goes.
It remains to be seen whether this is more sabre rattling, as seems likely, or something more serious. The UK has remained silent on the issue.
Speaking the previous week at the Aspen Security Forum, Bill Burns, the director of the CIA, warned countries “not to underestimate President Xi’s determination to assert China’s control” over Taiwan. His assessment was that “the risks of that become higher, it seems to us, the further into this decade that you get.”
Just a couple of weeks earlier Christopher Wray, the director of the FBI, and Ken McCallum, the head of MI5, made an unprecedented joint appearance to warn of the threat China poses to the West.
Wray used the event to say of Taiwan: “I don’t have any reason to think [the PRC’s] interest in Taiwan has abated in any fashion”, before adding that an invasion of Taiwan would “represent one of the most horrific business disruptions the world has ever seen.”
In our recent report, the Taiwan Policy Centre noted the increased impact that a PRC invasion of Taiwan would have on the world as well as examining the impact that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has had on their planning.
We are reassured to see that the world’s biggest and best intelligence agencies are on the same page as us.
Yet so far both leadership contenders have remained tight-lipped when it comes to their policy towards Taiwan. This is no great surprise given the record of the Johnson administration of which they were both key members.
Quite astonishingly, the Government’s Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy did not contain a single mention of Taiwan in its 111 pages.
We think it is right and proper that the two people vying off to be the next Prime Minister are clear about their approach to the biggest geo-political challenge of our time.
Which is why we have written an open to Sunak and Truss putting eight clear and simple question to them:
Their responses to these eight questions will tell us far more about how serious Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss about dealing with the Chinese Communist Party now and in the future, than the idle sniping that we have seen this week.
Both will be published in full on our website and we will also update ConHome readers on exactly where your two leadership candidate stand on this vitally important issue.