Does she really think Xi’s threats to Taiwan will be stopped by the sabre-rattling of the failed PM of a former colonial power?

There is a serious, calm and thoughtful discussion to be had about the western democracies’ future security and economic relationship with China, and it is under way in Washington and European capitals. Judging by her confrontational, attention-seeking speech in Tokyo today, Britain’s disgraced former prime minister Liz Truss is not part of it.

Truss, short of new ideas and insights, has defaulted to crowd-pleasing, hawkish positions that appear principally designed to facilitate a domestic political comeback at Rishi Sunak’s expense. A “totalitarian” China, she says, poses a global threat to the “free world”. Britain should help rally regional countries against Beijing by building a “Pacific defence alliance” and an “economic Nato”.

Simon Tisdall is a foreign affairs commentator and former Guardian foreign editor