Staff Reports
Candidates Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss for the position of Boris Johnson changed their stance on foreign policy on Thursday.
Truss and Sunak were questioned about how they would approach Saudi Arabia and Taiwan in their most recent Sky News discussion, respectively.
When Burley learned that Communist China was conducting aggressive live-fire "exercises" off Taiwan's coast, he asked Truss, the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary, if Britain "should arm Taiwan now."
By mentioning Britain's "extremely secure control mechanism," the foreign secretary sidestepped the subject. Private licenses are currently exported to Taiwan.
She dodged the question once more when asked whether "we should arm Taiwan or not," repeating that the government already licenses exports, which is obviously different from arming the island nation as has been done in Ukraine. When asked whether the status quo was the extent to which the Truss administration would go, she replied, "Yes, that is as far as we will go at this stage."
Truss was also questioned if, as Prime Minister, she would travel to Taiwan like Nancy Pelosi, the ailing Speaker of the US House of Representatives. She promptly retorted that she would not change British policy, which prohibits prime leaders, defense secretary, and foreign secretaries from visiting China out of concern for their reputations with Beijing.
Separately, she seemed to deny that she was in favor of Britons going to fight in Ukraine, claiming that she had always advocated for people to respect travel advisories and that she simply supported the Ukrainian cause.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) landed in Taipei, Taiwan, late Tuesday evening local time. https://t.co/m3Ynb4grtj
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) August 2, 2022
Sunak, a Communist Party spokesperson who has drawn the ire of the Truss campaign for his seeming softness toward China, He was not questioned on Taiwan but was instead asked how he would handle relations with Saudi Arabia, which led The Global Times to recommend him for prime minister owing to his "pragmatic view of developing balanced ties with China."
Given the Saudi crown prince's apparent involvement in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the country's history of publicly beheading anyone found guilty of "crimes" like witchcraft and sorcery, Burley questioned the former Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he would fist-bump the Saudi monarch.
Sunak jokingly claimed that he wasn't "a fist-bumping type of person," but when asked if he would shake the hand of the Saudi heir apparent, he stuttered: "I mean, I, uh, yes, I would shake his hand; I think, I generally share, I think you do have to engage with people around the world; I don't think, uh, and they're a country that we have a relationship with"
The preceding is a summary of an article that originally appeared on Breitbart.
