The former Australian prime minister Paul Keating accused Liz Truss of making demented comments about Chinese military aggression and urged the British foreign secretary to hurry back to her collapsing, disreputable government Keating, who has made a blistering op-ed, also said Britain suffers delusions of grandeur and relevance deprivation and its tilt to the Indo-Pacific lacks credibility.
The former Labor leader, who served as prime minister from 1991 to 1996, has always pushed for engagement with China but now finds himself at odds with the bipartisan consensus in Canberra to take a stronger line against Beijing.
Keating took aim at Truss who visited Australia last week for meetings with counterparts, after a report said she warned that China could use a Russian invasion of Ukraine as an opportunity to launch aggression in the Indo-Pacific.
Truss was quoted as saying during an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, "I don't think we can rule that out."
Russia is working more closely with China than ever. Aggressors are working together, and I think it is incumbent on countries like ours to work together. Keating, who previously said Australia should not come to Taiwan s aid in the event Beijing launches an attempt to invade the self-governed island, criticised Truss's comments.
The comments by British foreign secretary Liz Truss that China could engage in military aggression in the Pacific are nothing short of demented, Keating said in an op-ed posted on the Pearls and Irritations public policy blog on Saturday.
Keating said that 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 put it in with its East of Suez policy in the 1970s. It has never been back, Keating said in comments that were reported by The Australian newspaper on Monday.
Keating said that the British and Australian governments were kidding the rest of us that their cooperation added up to some viable policy Truss would do us a favor by hightailing it back to her collapsing, disreputable government, leaving Australia to find its own way in Asia. During her visit, Truss spoke to the Lowy Institute in Sydney and warned Russia that any invasion of Ukraine would only lead to a terrible quagmire and loss of life on the scale of the Soviet-Afghan war.
After a meeting with the Australian foreign and defence ministers, Truss said that Australia was an absolutely crucial ally and friend at a time of increased economic coercion from China In Sydney She backed Boris Johnson, saying he has her 100% support and should remain in No 10 as long as possible. In a speech in November, Keating said Britain was like an old theme park sliding into the Atlantic compared to modern China Keating a longtime advocate of Australia becoming a republic was once dubbed the Lizard of Oz by British tabloids after he put his hand on the Queen in 1992.
He strongly opposes the Aukus pact, which was sealed in September, in which the UK and the US have pledged to help Australia acquire at least eight nuclear-propelled submarines.
The Keating - party, formerly led, has largely tried to avoid major differences with the Morrison government on foreign policy in the lead up to a federal election due to be held by May this year.
The Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, said that China has become more forward-leaning and Australia is right to speak up for its own values saying Australian businesses have been suffering as a result of a range of trade actions launched by Beijing as the relationship deteriorated.
In November, the Australian defence minister, Peter Dutton, branded the former prime minister as Grand Appeaser Comrade Keating Dutton, later said that it would be inconceivable that Australia would not join the US if the top security ally defended Taiwan in a war with China, despite accusations that the minister was politicising national security in the lead-up to the election.