Ex-British PM urges successor: Get tough vs. China on Taiwan

TAIPEI—Britain’s former prime minister Liz Truss on Wednesday urged her successor Rishi Sunak to get tough with China on Taiwan, describing the democratic island as “an enduring rebuke to totalitarianism”.

China considers self-ruled Taiwan to be its territory, to be taken one day by force if necessary, and strongly opposes any formal engagement with the island, including by highprofile foreign political figures.

Truss, who is on a five-day visit to Taiwan, accused Sunak and other Western governments of “trying to cling on to the idea that we can cooperate with China on issues like climate change, as if there is nothing wrong”.

“But without freedom and democracy, there is nothing else. We know what happens to the environment or world health under totalitarian regimes that don’t tell the truth,” she said.

“You can’t believe a word they (China) say.”

Truss also called on Sunak to make good on his pledge during the Conservative leadership campaign last year to designate China a strategic “threat” and went on to say the West could not avoid another “Cold War” with Beijing.

It is “absolutely clear” that Chinese President Xi Jinping “has ambitions to take Taiwan”, she added at a press conference later.

“We don’t know exactly when that could take place and we don’t know how... All we can do is make sure Taiwan is as protected as possible.”

Sunak has pushed back on the tough rhetoric against China that Truss deployed before and during her 49-day tenure at 10 Downing Street last year.

She was ousted after her radical economic policies crashed financial markets.

Since then, Truss—who is still a sitting MP—has been trying to rebuild her profile with a series of speeches overseas, including in Tokyo, Washington, and Copenhagen. AFP

In March 2021, he became France’s first postwar president to be sentenced to jail when a court found he and his former lawyer, Thierry Herzog, had formed a “corruption pact” with judge Gilbert Azibert to obtain and share information about a legal investigation.

The trial came after investigators wiretapped Sarkozy’s two official phone lines, and discovered that he also had a third unofficial one taken out in 2014 under the name “Paul Bismuth”, through which he communicated with Herzog.

The contents of these phone calls led to the 2021 corruption verdict.

The former leader contested the accusations and immediately appealed.

On the first day of the appeals hearing in December last year, Sarkozy said he had “never corrupted anybody”.

His conversations with Herzog were played in court and expected to take a central role in determining Wednesday’s ruling. Two other cases

The so-called Bismuth case is just one of several pursuing the man dubbed the “hyper-president” while in office.

Sarkozy will be retried on appeal from November 2023 in the so-called Bygmalion case, which at first saw him sentenced to one year in prison.

The prosecution accused Sarkozy’s team of spending nearly double the legal limit on his lavish 2012 re-election campaign, using false billing from a public relations firm called Bygmalion. He has denied any wrongdoing. AFP

The company and its partner, auto manufacturer Stellantis, halted construction work this week on a massive EV battery plant in Canada, saying Trudeau’s government “has not delivered on what was agreed to”.

Trudeau’s visit follows a trip by Yoon to Ottawa last year.

Since then, the two countries have released their Indo-Pacific strategies, providing a road map for boosting military and economic relationships in the region, to counter the growing influence of China. AFP

WELLINGTON—An arsonist may have ignited the hostel blaze that killed at least six people in New Zealand’s capital, police said on Wednesday, as they opened a homicide investigation.

Smoke and flames engulfed the 92room, four-storey Loafers Lodge in Wellington in the early hours of Tuesday, sending residents fleeing for their lives.

Some survivors crawled through smoke to safety, while others were rescued from the rooftop by firefighters using ladder trucks.

Those who died still lie in the charred building.

“I can confirm that we are treating the fire as arson,” police inspector and acting district commander Dion Bennett told reporters, declining to give the full reasons.

“It is being treated as a homicide investigation.”

Police have a list of people they want to speak to, he added, but no one has been arrested so far.

Firefighters found six bodies inside the hostel, but said they were unable to search everywhere because the roof had partially collapsed on the top floor.

Police have said the death toll may rise.

Two hours before the blaze broke out, a couch had caught fire inside the building without being reported to emergency services, police said earlier.

Investigators were looking into possible links between the two incidents, they said.

A police reconnaissance team entered the building on Wednesday for the first time since it was declared safe, to look for evidence and locate the dead. AFP

BANGKOK—Thailand should have a government that “reflects the will of the people”, regional poll observers said Wednesday, as the victorious opposition’s bid to take power faced resistance from junta-appointed senators.

The progressive Move Forward Party (MFP) emerged from Sunday’s election as the biggest party after voters emphatically rejected nearly a decade of militarybacked rule. Regional observers from the Asian Net- work for Free Elections (ANFREL) saluted the strong voter turnout of just over 75 percent and said the poll was more transparent than the previous one in 2019.

“ANFREL hopes that this general election may result in a government that reflects the will of the people,” the group said in a report.

MFP claimed 152 seats with rival opposition outfit Pheu Thai second on 141 and the two sides will meet for coalition talks later Wednesday.

They are working on a six-party coalition that would give them more than 300 of the 500 lower house seats.

But to secure the prime minister’s job the coalition needs a majority across both houses—including the Senate, whose 250 members were handpicked by the previous junta.

MFP and its allies need 376 lower house votes to ensure senators could not block party leader Pita Limjaroenrat from becoming prime minister. AFP