Truss Visits Taiwan, Urges West to Counter China

Facts

• Former British Prime Minister Liz Truss on Wednesday called for the West to choose between appeasing Beijing or taking action to prevent war, arguing that a new Cold War has already started.¹
• Speaking at the Taiwanese think tank Prospect Foundation as part of her five-day visit to the self-ruling island, she urged free nations to commit themselves to a free Taiwan and work together to create an "economic NATO" to counter China.²
• Truss suggested that G7 nations, members of the EU, South Korea, and Australia should join forces to "get things done," claiming that neither the UN Security Council nor the World Trade Organization are reliable to enforce international rules.³
• She also pressured her successor Rishi Sunak to urgently make good on tough commitments he made before taking office, including closing all of the Confucius Institutes in the UK and describing China as Britain's biggest long-term threat, as Sunak has so far adopted a "robust pragmatism" towards Beijing.⁴
• Truss is the most high-profile British politician to visit Taiwan since the late Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the 1990s.⁵
• China described her trip to the island — which comes as tensions have mounted in the Strait — as a dangerous political move that could harm Britain.⁶

Sources: ¹The Telegraph, ²Guardian, ³BBC News, ⁴Daily Mail, ⁵Reuters, and ⁶Sky News.

Narratives

• Anti-China narrative, as provided by Express. It should be obvious to everyone right now that China cannot be trusted to follow the rules. Free and democratic nations must cooperate to protect Taiwan in the face of a PRC blockade or invasion as the future of the self-ruling island is intertwined with core Western values. Similar to the Ukraine War, the West has a collective responsibility to back Taiwan and hold Beijing accountable for its wrongdoing.
• Pro-China narrative, as provided by Global Times. This flagrant interference in China's domestic affairs has been a full-blown fiasco — both to the shortest-serving prime minister ever in the UK and to Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party authorities. Truss has become a troublemaker criticized even by her Conservative allies. Posturing as "getting tough with Beijing" can only aggravate internal problems in the West.

Predictions

Will China launch a full-scale invasion of Taiwan by the following years?

Metaculus is a community dedicated to generating accurate predictions about future real-world events by aggregating the collective wisdom, insight, and intelligence of its participants.

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