The Conservative chair of the foreign affairs select committee has launched a blistering attack on Liz Truss over the former prime minister’s planned trip to Taiwan, calling it “the worst kind of Instagram diplomacy”.
Alicia Kearns said she thought Truss’s trip planned for next week was little more than a vanity project aimed at keeping her profile high after her brief spell as prime minister last year.
Truss is planning to travel to show “solidarity” with the Taiwanese people amid aggression from Beijing. Taiwan is a self-governing democracy, but Beijing regards it as a renegade province which must be reunited with the mainland.
Truss’s trip has the potential to upset the British government’s carefully balanced approach to Chinese relations, with the foreign secretary, James Cleverly, arguing the UK should not “pull the shutters down on China”.
Kearns said: “The trip is performative, not substantive. It is the worst kind of example of Instagram diplomacy.”
She added that the trip was likely to make life harder for the Taiwanese people, who already have to live with a higher level of Chinese military action on their doorstep after the visit by Nancy Pelosi, then the speaker of the US House of Representatives.
Beijing responded to that visit by dispatching warships and military jets to surround the island and firing missiles over it.
“It is deeply unhelpful because it escalates the normal situation in Taiwan,” Kearns said. “Taiwanese people already have to live with more Chinese military manoeuvres because of Nancy Pelosi’s visit. Liz Truss doesn’t have any influence any more – this is more about keeping herself relevant.”
A spokesperson for Truss hit back saying: “The former prime minister has been invited to visit by the Taiwan government. They are better placed to know what is in the interests of the Taiwanese people than the MP for Rutland.
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“The future of Taiwan as a free democracy is at stake. Alicia Kearns should apologise for misusing her position as a select committee chair to engage in petty political attacks.”
Truss announced on Tuesday she planned to visit the island, calling it a “beacon of freedom and democracy”.
The trip follows one to Washington last month, where she gave the annual Margaret Thatcher freedom lecture to the conservative thinktank the Heritage Foundation. She used that speech to attack “wokeism” and argue that her downfall had been the result of a conspiracy by vested interests within the government.
The government has not commented except to say that it would not get involved in the “independent travel decisions of a private citizen who is not a member of the government”.
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