Tory leadership: Truss set to attack Sunak as soft on China
Liz Truss’ campaign team is reportedly set to paint Rishi Sunak as soft on China and national security as she tries to win over Tory members.
Truss, who is foreign secretary, has framed herself as a foreign policy hawk in the early parts of the campaign and talked up her efforts in helping place sanctions on Russia in retaliation for the Ukraine war.
The Sunday Telegraph reports that she plans to paint Sunak as a foreign policy “dove” during the campaign and will bring up his insistence that the UK needs to increase or maintain trade with China.
Truss questioned Sunak in last week’s ITV debate about his stance on China, with the ex-chancellor saying that he believed China was a threat but that it was not possible to completely shut them out economically.
Truss has an early lead in the race to be the UK’s next Prime Minister, with polling showing she holds a 20+ point advantage over Sunak amid grassroots party members.
An ally of Truss told The Telegraph: “She has called out China for using economics as a coercive tactic against other countries in a way that harms Britain and she raised this at the G7 summit. She doesn’t think we should cut off ties to China, but she wants to recalibrate, to diversify supply chains and make sure Commonwealth countries don’t become client states of Beijing.
“I don’t think Rishi is quite in that space – he still harks back to the ‘golden era’ of trade with China that David Cameron and George Osborne wanted, and has taken softer positions.”
Truss and Sunak began a six-week campaign to win the votes of 200,000 Tory grassroots members last Thursday.
The winner of the contest will be crowned on 5 September and will likely enter Number 10 the next day.
The pair will face off in a series of hustings events and live TV debates in the coming weeks.