TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Former U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss reportedly lobbied her government to allow the sale of military equipment to China three months after she was paid nearly NT$3.6 million (US$115,000) to visit Taiwan.
Politico reported on Tuesday (Jan. 16) that documents show Truss secretly lobbied a top U.K. trade official to allow a business selling landmine disposal equipment to export to China. Experts said the equipment could be used by China in an invasion of Taiwan.
Truss has presented herself as a prominent critic of China in the U.K. Parliament. When she was in Taiwan in May 2023, she received nearly NT$3.6 million for speeches in which she described the “solidarity that British people feel for the people of Taiwan.”
She called on “China apologists” with “financial interests” to be ignored, and implored Western nations to support Taiwan militarily. The battle for Taiwan’s future with China was the most “consequential struggle of our time,” she said.
A spokesperson for Truss said that the former prime minister was only doing her job when lobbying for permission for the military equipment to be sold to China. However, China Strategic Risks Institute Executive Director Andrew Yeh criticized the move.
“It would be naive for any U.K. government official not to consider the risk that the equipment which ends up in China then ends up being used in an invasion scenario over Taiwan," Yeh said.
Paul Huang (黃柏彰), a research fellow at the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation, told Taiwan News that Truss’s visit to Taiwan highlights the “extreme wishful thinking and incompetence” of the foreign ministry and the Prospect Foundation, the latter of which invited Truss to Taiwan.
Huang said this enabled Truss to visit Taiwan at taxpayers’ expense, “while she gave Taiwan nothing in return except empty praises of the ruling government, and hawkish yet meaningless rhetoric about China.”
“There is no question that Taiwan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) and Prospect Foundation President Lai I-Chung (賴怡忠) are responsible for inviting such a terrible foreign guest of disrepute to Taiwan on our taxpayers’ expense, all the while she was working against Taiwan’s national interest,” Huang said. He said Wu and Lai owe Taiwan an explanation.
“These two ruling government appointees have repeatedly peddled empty hawkish anti-China rhetoric, yet this Truss scandal completely exposed them as having little or zero understanding of geopolitical reality,” he said.
Much of the nearly NT$3.6 million in speaking fees Truss received during her May trip to Taiwan was paid by the Prospect Foundation, a think tank focused on cross-strait relations. Staff at the foundation said they were not aware of the report and declined to provide comment.
The remainder of Truss’s speaking fees was paid by the foreign ministry, which said her trip “fully demonstrated her firm support for Taiwan.” On Tuesday, a foreign ministry spokesperson affirmed Taiwan’s thanks to Truss for her visit and declined Taiwan News’s request for comment on the Politico report.
Visited the Taiwan Legislative Yuan and also met Vice President Lai, Premier Chen and Foreign Minister Wu.
The democracy of Taiwan is on the frontier of freedom and I will do all I can to support you.
Your future is our future. 〔錯誤字元無法儲存〕〔錯誤字元無法儲存〕〔錯誤字元無法儲存〕〔錯誤字元無法儲存〕 pic.twitter.com/qVwa8VeYII
— Liz Truss (@trussliz) May 18, 2023
