Britain’s new Conservative Prime Minister Liz Truss He will be chancellor until he is enthroned as premier by Queen Elizabeth this Tuesday, in a ceremony at the Scottish palace of Balmoral. His time in the British Foreign Office is full of gaffeswhich made more than an experienced minister smile and infuriated Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

He described their discussion “as the conversation between a dumb and deaf” in Moscow. In Whitehall, the area of ​​British ministries, they scornfully call her “Mini-Maggie”, for her attempt to look like Margaret Thatcher.

He has never officially visited Latin America and after passing through the Liberal Democratic Party, Liz has a “Reagan” view of the region, where the United States is her main ally, against Russia and China, without the support of the Europeans.

On February 15, 2022, Foreign Minister Liz Truss intimidated China. He defended the Falkland Islands as “part of the British family”after China backed Argentina’s claim to the islands.

crossing with China

The British Foreign Minister tweeted it “China must respect the sovereignty of the” Falklands “(Malvinas)”after Argentine President Alberto Fernández met with Chinese President Xi on the sidelines of the Beijing Winter Olympics.

According to a statement on the website of the Chinese embassy in the UK, the two leaders spoke of their “deep friendship”. Argentina has joined the Silk Road Infrastructure Initiative, a Chinese state-backed campaign for global influence.

But they also signed an agreement in which China reiterated his support for Argentina’s claim on the Malvinas, while Fernandez supported Xi’s unique China policy, which claims Taiwan as its own.

The declaration states that Argentina should be able to “fully exercise its sovereignty on the issue of the Falkland Islands”.

The British Chancellor then said: “We completely reject any questioning of the sovereignty of the Falklands (Malvinas). The Falklands (Malvinas) are part of the British family and we will defend their right to self-determination. China must respect the sovereignty of the Falklands (Malvinas), “he wrote on Twitter.

Chen Weihua, reporter from the China Dailyan English-language newspaper owned by the Communist Party of China replied: “But is it okay for the UK to challenge Chinese sovereignty in the South China Sea by sending navy ships? At least China hasn’t sent its navy near the Falklands, or what you call the Falklands. “

The Chinese embassy in London said it “strongly supports Argentina’s claims on the islands”.

A weakened ministry

The British Foreign Office failed to regain its footing under the leadership of Foreign Minister Liz Truss. The morale of the staff is low not enough employees are sent overseas and there is an unsustainable lack of experience in Russia, according to a report by the independent think tank Institute for Goverment.

It also notes that the merger between the Department for International Development (DfID) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs remains incomplete. Relations with the other Whitehall departments are strained.

Although the war in Ukraine was Truss’s number one priority, the report notes that the number of full-time equivalent personnel working in the Indo-Pacific it is three times higher than that of Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Only 160 employees cover the whole region and only 20 of them are in Moscow. The number of staff in the department who speak an advanced level of Russian dropped from 83 in December 2017 to less than 60 in February 2022.

Management criticized

“We were told of strained relations between the different parts of the government involved in the implementation of the sanctions policy, which included the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Treasury and the Ministry of the Interior.”

He added that this was due to the British Foreign Office’s apparent reluctance to devote resources to sanctions policy. “Leaving the department on the defensivewhen the issue rose to the top of the agenda in February, “according to the Think Tank report on Russia.

In May, following harsh criticism of the Foreign Ministry’s handling of the exodus from Afghanistan last August, including calls for the resignation of Permanent Undersecretary Sir Philip Barton, Truss oversaw sweeping changes to the department. including the appointment of a second permanent secretary with greater responsibility for political work.

The institute said the quake, which was not reported to parliament, was a sign that the merger had not worked as intended or had created a single culture.

liz is gone personally supported in his battle for leadership from Boris Johnson in his battle against Rishi Sunak, the then chancellor of finance, who with his resignation triggered the crisis that ended the Boris government.

But, at the same time, his political strength is unstable enough that no one will give him too much time or stability in government. If she is eliminated by a vote of confidence before Christmas, the Conservative candidate in the British general election claims to be Boris Johnson, who inserted her.

PB