Liz Truss urges Rishi Sunak to describe China as a ‘threat’ to UK security

Former prime minister Liz Truss will call for her successor Rishi Sunak to say China is a “threat” to UK security.

Ms Truss will be speaking in Taiwan’s capital Taipei, where she is expected to say that Mr Sunak should deliver on language he used during last summer’s Conservative Party leadership contest.

He had described China as the “biggest long-term threat to Britain”, as well as promising to close all of Beijing’s Confucius Institutes in the UK.

The institutes promote Chinese culture at universities as well as in some schools.

Ms Truss will say: “He was right and we need to see those policies enacted urgently.

“The UK’s integrated review needs to be amended to state clearly that China is a threat.

“Confucius Institutes should be closed down immediately. Instead the service could be provided by organisations with the support of Hong Kong nationals and Taiwanese nationals who have come to the UK on a free basis.”

Ms Truss, who lasted just 44 days in Downing Street, is making what is thought to be the first visit of a former British prime minister to Taiwan since Margaret Thatcher in the 1990s.

She is expected to warn that the West should not work with China and that totalitarian regimes “don’t tell the truth”.

“We know what happens to the environment or world health under totalitarian regimes that don’t tell the truth – you can’t believe a word they say.”

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Ms Truss’s visit comes at a time of growing tension in the region, with China increasing pressure on Taiwan, which it says must unite with the mainland by force if necessary.

Taiwan continues to claim independence from China.