Former Australian Prime Minister Blasts UK Foreign Secretary's China Remarks As 'Demented'

Former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating admonished the United Kingdom Foreign Secretary Liz Truss for remarking that China could launch an assault in the Pacific region in coordination with Russia, and said that Australia must embark on its own path in Asia independently of London

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 24th January, 2022) Former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating admonished the United Kingdom Foreign Secretary Liz Truss for remarking that China could launch an assault in the Pacific region in coordination with Russia, and said that Australia must embark on its own path in Asia independently of London.

Truss gave an interview to The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age on Saturday, in which she claims that cooperation between "aggressors," like Russia and China is gaining momentum, without ruling out the possibility of China embarking on an assault in the Indo-Pacific "following a Russian invasion of Ukraine."

"Remarks by the British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss that China could engage in military aggression in the Pacific, encouraged by Russia's contingent moves against Ukraine, are nothing short of demented," Keating told the Australian Pearls and Irritations public policy journal on Sunday.

Keating defined Truss's remarks as irresponsible, stressing that they are grounded in the Australian government's "desperate promotion of Britain as a strategic partner of Australia in a policy of containment of China."

"Truss would do us all a favor by hightailing it back to her collapsing, disreputable government, leaving Australia to find its own way in Asia," Keating said.

He stressed that the UK's influence in East Asia has come to naught since the end of its imperial holdings and military commitments in the region.

"The reality is Britain does not add up to a row of beans when it comes to East Asia. Britain took its main battle fleet out of East Asia in 1904 and finally packed it in with its 'East of Suez' policy in the 1970s. And it has never been back," Keating claimed, adding that the UK "suffers delusions of grandeur and relevance deprivation."

"Australia's great Foreign 'non minister', Marise Payne, supported by the increasingly strident Defense Minister Peter Dutton, standing beside the British Foreign Secretary looking wistfully for Britain's lost worlds of the 19th and 20th centuries. Really," Keating added.

He also noted that China indeed does not demonstrate an aggressor's behavior, citing Xi Jinping as saying at Davos economic forum last week that "major economies should see the world as one community."

Truss and UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace arrived in Australia on January 20 to discuss bilateral ties alongside the economic and security situation in the region. As part of her visit, Truss repeatedly claimed that China and Russia are consolidating their influence through collaborating with autocracies and harnessing bilateral cooperation, posing a threat to regional and global security, while praising joint counter efforts by Australia, the UK and the rest of "the free world."