Winter is Coming: A New Era of British Foreign Policy
Liz Truss became the shortest-serving British Prime Minister when she resigned on October 20th. In just 45 days, Ms. Truss depleted her credibility as PM after her ambitious tax cuts and mini-budget proposals led to panics in the financial market. Her departure from No. 10 may have crowned the lettuce as the victor in their race to outlast one another, but has also reignited conversations over Britain’s politics. While Truss’ economic policy attracted significant backlash, her foreign policy stances garnered less scrutiny. Fueled by her Tory backbenchers, Truss made no shortage of criticisms towards an increasingly aggressive Russia and assertive China, claiming both countries as real threats to the post-World War II world order on multiple international stages. In spite of her ouster from the top job, a peek into Truss’ hawkish foreign policy agenda reveals where Britain is heading diplomatically, and why the next PM should consider Truss’ vision with caution.
Winter is Coming
Undoubtedly, the war in Ukraine will remain Britain’s top diplomatic priority. Truss subscribed to the ideological musings of Garry Kasparov, an exiled Russian chess grandmaster who urged the world leaders to “throw Russia back into the stone age.” In many senses, the former PM was a Ukrainian maximalist, too. In her Mansion House speech back in April, she urged the Western partners to “double-down” their support for Ukraine, claiming the need to push Russia out of the whole of Ukraine. This includes Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in 2014. Truss had also been a vocal advocate of sending weapons to Ukraine since the beginning of the war, refuting all suggestions of cutting any peace deal because she believed this would allow Putin to rearm himself.
Truss’ hawkish foreign policy reaches beyond Europe, informing her similarly tough yet more comprehensive line against China. While serving as the Secretary of State for International Trade, Truss warned the West of the potential threat in ceding global trade to China, famously addressing the country as “the tyranny of the largest.” She repeatedly urged the World Trade Organization (WTO) to get tough on China, stressing that China should not be enjoying the trading advantages of a developing nation as the second-largest economy in the world. The former PM had also been keen on fostering a stronger Anglo-Taiwan relationship. Western allies, she urged, needed to learn the lesson from Ukraine and arm Taiwan early. While she later retracted some of her comments, Britain has shown its interest in advancing its relations with Taiwan, perhaps not to the point of establishing official diplomatic ties or sending troops, but certainly enough to further upset the Mainland Chinese, who treat the “One-China Policy” as its diplomatic foundation. In areas of technology, Truss maintained the decision to ban Chinese companies such as Huawei and Hikvision, and has threatened to extend her crackdown to include popular Chinese social media apps such as TikTok, claiming that Britain should “limit the amount of technology” exports to authoritarian regimes.
No doubt, Truss was a hard-liner towards Russia and China, but much of this credit goes to some of her closest advisors. Upon her election, Truss picked several China hawks to advise her on foreign affairs. Some of them, including Tom Tugendhat and Nusret Ghani, had experience serving in various caucuses and research groups within the Tory Party focusing on China, and are widely recognized as some of the most ardent promoters of Truss’ hawkish policies. Their emergence into leadership power was no coincidence. At least six parliamentarian leaders who have openly demonstrated their hostility towards China are currently serving on important Tory committees and parliamentary alliances against China. One of them is Alicia Kearns, the director of the Conservative Party’s China Research Group who had recently been promoted to become the chair of U.K Parliament’s foreign affairs committee. She has repeatedly warned of the weaponization of Mandarin education by China, and promised to “reduce strategic dependence on China.” The presence of these advisors determines that no matter who becomes the new PM, China will always be on one’s mind.
Together, these advisors put together Truss’ trademark diplomatic proposal—building a “Network of Liberty.”
Network of Liberty
Truss first proposed the idea of a “Network of Liberty” as foreign secretary. Under her framework, the UK would work closely with its like-minded liberal partners to tackle the “malign acts” of authoritarian regimes around the world, as the plan details, “We now need a new approach, one that melds hard security and economic security, one that builds stronger global alliances and where free nations are more assertive and self-confident.”
Fundamentally, Truss viewed geopolitics as an economic problem. She had long been enthusiastic about incorporating the G7, the Commonwealth, ASEAN, and other Indo-Pacific partners into her grand design. As foreign secretary, she also aspired to allow the UK to become a member of the Transpacific Trade Partnership. Truss viewed economic policies as a way to strengthen alliances. Her UN speech encouraged the formation of an economic NATO, an organization where the West joins together to help friendly economies targeted by an “aggressive regime.”
Ideologically principled as this framework might sound, the policy does have a utilitarian compromise. In theory, the Network of Liberty should compose of the UK's ideological partners. However, Truss also favored the idea of inviting Indonesia and Saudi Arabia, nations that do not quite fit under the requirements of this alliance, but she believed it would be dangerous if they were to be wooed by China and Russia.
Truss styled Britain as the defender of post-war western world order under the narrative of this framework. The question is, will her successor be able to deliver?
Action Now?
Truss promised a lot as a candidate. Following her election as leader Truss said, “I will deliver a bold plan to cut taxes and grow our economy. I will deliver on the energy crisis, dealing with people’s energy bills, but also dealing with the long-term issues we have on energy supply.” However, the reality turned out to be a bigger headache. In September, Britain’s consumer price index rose by 9.9% annually, and economists from Goldman Sachs warned the government that UK’s inflation could hit a shocking 22% in January. Her government’s announcement of bold tax cuts and mini-budget proposals witnessed the British sterling hit a record low against the dollar on September 26th, and the major sell-off in government bonds has sparked genuine concerns over the health of Britain’s pension funds. Winter really is coming. There has been no shortage of warnings that Britain is likely to fall into a 2-year recession with real consumption likely to decline significantly. Truss’ resignation may help restore some confidence among investors, but the Tories are now trailing by 36 points behind Labor in the most recent poll. At least in economics, the pain is much ahead than behind.
Looking to the future of Britain’s leadership, former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak assumed the position of Leader of the Conservative Party and future PM on October 24th. Sunak took up the opportunity, during his previous campaign against Truss, to demonstrate his hostility towards China. Sunak has had plenty of experience dealing with China and Russia, and had relied on his hard-lining foreign policy stances to bolster his popularity amongst the Tory base. However, Britain’s imminent energy crisis and economic hardships will demand caution from the new PM. As of August, China is still the UK's third largest trading partner, and the brewing economic crisis rooted in Russia’s war has shown how much damage Putin can still do to the UK.
“Freedom is a price worth paying,” Truss remarked during her party debate in July. In the foreseeable future, Rishi Sunak will continue to reiterate Truss’ strong narratives on foreign policies. However, is Britain prepared to do what it takes?
