Iain Duncan Smith has chastised Rishi Sunak for “appearing weak” in response to China, and has called on the UK government to take strong action and use strong rhetoric. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
During the Tory leadership election, the Prime Minister called China a “threat” before backtracking and calling Beijing a strategic “challenge.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I am disappointed in my government over this particular area because the prime minister said during the summer that China represented a systemic threat and then recently shifted that to systemic challenge,” Mr Duncan-Smith told Sky News’ Sophie Ridge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The problem with the challenge is it looks weak and we’ve now got a policy which sounds like it could have come from Sir Humphrey in Yes Minister, which is robust pragmatism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Now can somebody can please tell me what robust pragmatism means, it means nothing robust, but also pragmatic they cancel each other out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The reality of what we’ve got to do is we’ve got to change our integrated review, to put China in as a systemic threat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He added: “The Americans are way ahead of us on this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Other countries in Europe are talking about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We, the UK, could run the risk of being left behind dragging our feet.”<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Iain Duncan Smith has chastised Rishi Sunak for “appearing weak” in response to China, and has called on the UK government to take strong action and use strong rhetoric. During … <\/p>\n