While inflation and recession fears weigh heavily on the minds of voters, another issue is popping up in political campaigns from the UK and Australia to the US and beyond: It is the “China threat.”
The two finalists vying to become Britain’s next prime minister, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, clashed in a televised debate last month over who would be toughest on China, reports AP.
Outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s business-focused “Sinophile” approach and part of a hardening of anti-China rhetoric in many Western countries and other democracies, like Japan, that is coming out in election campaigns.
Nations for years have sought to balance promoting trade and investment with the world’s second-largest economy with concerns about China’s projection of military power, espionage and its human rights record.
The pendulum is swinging toward the latter, as evidenced in US, European, Japanese and Australian opposition to the threatening Chinese military drills that followed US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan last week.
In the Australian election, conservatives broke from a bipartisanship tradition on critical national security issues to accuse the center-left Labor Party of being likely to appease Beijing.
“This is not something that solely Australia is calling for,” Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said, adding the entire region was concerned.
Bd-pratidin English/Golam Rosul
