Former prime minister warns era of political and economic dominance by west coming to an end
Tony Blair has issued a rallying call to western nations to come together to develop a coherent strategy to counter the rise of China as “the world’s second superpower”.
He said western powers needed to increase their defence spending in order to maintain their military superiority while extending their “soft power” by building ties with developing nations.At the same time, they needed urgently to end the “craziness” in their domestic politics and to restore “reason and strategy”.
“The craziness in our own politics has to stop. We can’t afford the luxury of indulging fantasy. We need to put reason and strategy back in the saddle. And we need to do so with urgency.”, Blair said that it had already caught up with the US in many fields of technology, while President Xi Jinping had made no secret of his ambition to return Taiwan to Beijing’s rule.
“Don’t misunderstand me. I am not saying in the near term that China would attempt to take Taiwan by force. But we can’t base our policy on the certainty that it wouldn’t. And even leaving to the side Taiwan, the reality is China under Xi’s leadership is competing for influence and doing so aggressively.”
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