21 Sep The Truss Administration – What Can We Expect on…Russia and China

As the UK seeks to carve out its position in the world under both a new monarch and a new Prime Minister, our first blog assessed what the big changes in people and policy under Truss’ administration will mean for the UK’s security. We now look to hone in on what that means concretely in the UK’s approach to some of its biggest strategic rivals, namely Russia and China.

Russia

It’s clear that Truss, whose first call to a foreign leader was with Ukrainian President Zelensky and who is likely to visit Kyiv soon, will continue her predecessor’s policy to the Russian invasion. The rhetoric may become even sharper, with a more explicit link to her “freedom” philosophy and – as evidenced so far – a greater willingness to take risks. 

Truss has consistently positioned herself as less cautious than her predecessor regarding arming Ukraine, making the call for heavy weapons, tanks, and aeroplanes to be supplied to Ukraine in her Mansion House speech in April 2022, and recently wrote a joint article with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, announcing “we must ignore the defeatist voices” calling for Ukraine to cut a peace deal. Having overseen the imposition of over 1,200 sanctions on Russia since the invasion – the 4th highest in the world – Truss has earned herself the reputation of a vehement defender of Ukraine. She is supported by Wallace, who also took an active and early role in Ukraine, assuming a lead in establishing the international donors’ conference which coordinates military supplies to Ukraine. James Cleverly’s first call was also to his Ukrainian counterpart, Kuleba, and he has indicated his desire to stand firm in support of Ukraine, and “continue to be as firm friends now as we have been under Boris Johnson”. With Truss considered to not only share Boris Johnson’s risk appetite, but exceed it, relations between London and Kyiv are expected to continue to warm. 

This approach leaves little room for engagement with Russia. On the campaign trail Truss pledged to “call Putin out” by attending – rather than boycotting – the G20 summit if Russia attends, and to do “everything possible” to counteract Russia’s influence. Unsurprisingly, this has not landed well in Russia. Putin’s chief spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, has expressed concerns that relations might deteriorate under a Truss administration – comments which come after Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, declared that negotiations with Truss were “like the deaf talking to the blind”. Her stridency around Ukraine has led to fears of reprisals from Russia, with the Kremlin even blaming Truss’s hawkishness for its decision to put its nuclear arsenal on alert.

For Truss, tensions with Russia aren’t just about economics and power but about ideology, believing that the world never truly came out of the Cold War. The underpinning of Truss’s foreign policy is clear and unambiguous, providing direction for both the UK’s diplomacy and defence posture. Channelling Truss’ desire for the UK to hold a prominent role on the international stage, we can expect a firm willingness to place the UK at the centre of the battle for libertarian ideals, and for the foreground of this to be focused on Ukraine and her stance against Russia. If delivery is to match ambition, additional spending – on both defence and diplomacy – is to be expected.

Looking forward, strategic challenges inevitably lie ahead. The Ukraine conflict may continue for some time, challenging public support in the UK and across the West. Will European allies, faced with immense energy pressures, begin to look to persuade Ukraine into a compromise? Still more challenging for Truss, might a post-midterms United States begin to move in a similar direction? Could the UK be left in hawkish isolation? It may not be long before the fate of Kherson shows which set of challenges we will face next. In any case, there is no doubt that a Truss Government building on Johnson’s foreign policies is no bystander: the UK is playing a not insignificant role and can help make the diplomatic weather.

China

On China too, the new administration is expected to take a tough stance. As Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss took a much harder line than her predecessors on China. If she persists with this approach as Prime Minister, the UK’s relations with China are likely to undergo a chill unprecedented in recent years.   

As Foreign Secretary, Truss consistently and confidently diverged from David Cameron’s pursuit of a “golden era” with Chinese President Xi Jinping, using both her opening pitch as Foreign Secretary in 2021 and her Mansion House Speech in April 2022 to characterise China as a strategic threat. As Foreign Secretary, she has taken a hard approach to the Chinese treatment of the Uighur population as well as on the use of Huawei technology in the UK 5G network and has also strongly supported the generous visa offer to Hong Kong citizens. Even as a senior Minister in Johnson’s Government, she often appeared to be keen to move even further in the direction of a tough approach to China.

The team around her, including Cleverly, Wallace and China hawk Tugendhat – all of whom have openly supported a firm stance on China’s influence – would be expected to deliver a particularly muscular policy on China. Tugendhat particularly has done his best to harden British policy toward the Chinese state through his role in establishing the Parliamentary China Research Group (CRG), calling for the UK to lead the way in uniting the free world against the threat posed by China by focusing on defence, and encouraging other nations to shore up their own defence spending. It will be particularly interesting to see how Tugendhat’s presence in the Government influences policy: does it move even closer to that of the CRG or if not how does he react?

What are the prospects for a further evolution of UK policy on China under Truss? The answer perhaps lies in “liberty”, not only the name of one of Truss’ daughters, but also the guiding light of her philosophy. As International Trade Secretary, she made the pursuit of free trade her principal goal and insisted that doing so was consistent with her support for the Brexit project. However, she has also made clear that the active support for liberal democratic structures is fundamental to her concept of freedom.   

She aspires for the UK to lead a “global network of liberty” against the “maelstrom of militancy, mistrust and misinformation” deployed by authoritarian regimes, include by growing closer to allied neighbours of China, and pre-empting threats in the Indo-Pacific. This at the root of the AUKUS initiative launched under Boris Johnson’s Government, to which Truss remains committed.   In addition, the UK’s application to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), and continued efforts to build the UK’s credibility among ASEAN member states, form part of the same strategy to build the UK’s presence in support of democratic forces in the Asia-Pacific region.  More broadly, she has supported strengthening of groupings of democratic states, based on but not limited to NATO and the G7, mindful of the limitations of a UN system when both Russia and China are permanent members of the Security Council.

This robust approach will bring the UK under Truss even closer to the US, while key EU members continue to prefer a more nuanced relationship with China. It is unclear how far she will want the UK to go, if a further hardening is at the expense of economic interests and, for example, the flow of Chinese students to the UK. We will need to continue to follow these trends carefully. A key indicator to watch is how Truss will label China in the likely revision of the Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy – ‘systematic competitor’ or ‘threat’?