Britain’s Golden
Era With China
Is Well and
Truly Dead
Liz Truss’s administration is the nail in the coffin for friendly ties with Beijing.
Liz Truss’s tenure as Britain’s prime minister will usher in a transformative period for the country’s foreign policy. While Truss will likely continue many of her predecessor’s domestic policies, her administration’s foreign policy will represent a marked departure from the past: most notably, a final break with the idea of a so-called golden era with China.
Long gone are the days of exploring how Britain can develop stronger economic ties with China. Under former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, a self-proclaimed Sinophile, the British government briefly saw China as a potential key partner that could replace the European Union and provide significant foreign investment in the post-Brexit era. But as Beijing cracked down on Hong Kong, causing a rupture with London, those hopes faded—and under Truss, they have been replaced with an explicit skepticism of Beijing. Truss has even explicitly declared that China represents a threat to the United Kingdom.
Truss, formerly Britain’s foreign secretary, spent the campaign trail painting herself as a disruptor prepared to break the mold on groupthink, especially in foreign policy. Her China stance is no exception. It has been formed over a number of years and across a selection of senior positions. But even though Truss is a China hawk, she believes Beijing is principally a geoeconomic rather than geopolitical threat. In her view, strengthening the economic heft and leverage of the G-7 and NATO should be the primary means of deterring Chinese aggression.
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