New U.K. government urged to launch '10 Trillion Initiative'

London, July 11 (CNA) The new United Kingdom government has been urged to launch a "10 Trillion Initiative" to mitigate the possible economic impact that could result from a conflict in the Taiwan Strait.

In an article titled "The U.K. and China: A Call for Cross-Party Consensus" published on the Royal United Services Institute's (RUSI) website, Bob Seely and Jaya Pathak called for the new British government to plan for the worse by implementing the initiative.

The goal, they said, was to "give due priority to addressing real and developing risks in the region, together with international partners."

According to the RUSI, the world's oldest and the U.K.'s leading defense and security think tank, Seely is a former Conservative Party member of Parliament, and is perceived as a hardliner toward China. Pathak has been a member of the Executive Committee at the Labour Campaign for International Development since 2020.

The Labour Party won a landslide victory to take control of Parliament from the Conservatives, who had been in power for 14 years.

The two authors said the "10 Trillion Initiative" was based on an estimate by Bloomberg Economics, which recently argued that an escalation of tensions across the Taiwan Strait could cost the world economy about US$10 trillion.

"This isn't someone else's problem. This would hit the pockets of the U.K. taxpayer five times harder than the Ukraine conflict," the article said.

"De-risking means that the U.K. must plan for the worst. Implementing a 10 Trillion Initiative would aim to give due priority to addressing real and developing risks in the region, together with international partners," the article said.

Seely and Pathak said the initiative must include assessing and disclosing the U.K.'s exposure to a shock in the Taiwan Strait; raising awareness of Taiwan's irreplaceable position at the heart of the global chip supply chain; and coming up with a military and defense cooperation plan.

The initiative also must include efforts to work with international partners on a coordinated deterrence package that would be triggered in the event of a maritime and air blockade or other escalations in cross-strait tensions, the two authors said.

They found it "very worrying" that voters barely heard the China issue mentioned in the U.K. general election campaign, though they attributed that to the old adage that "foreign policy doesn't win elections."

According to the two authors, all the major parties in the U.K. made some reference to China in their manifestos amid varying shades of skepticism, but they made no serious attempt to explain the increasing link between foreign policy and domestic policy.

"This despite the fact that the U.K.'s posture towards China is likely to determine the country's prosperity and the health of its institutions to a very great extent over the next 15 years," Seely and Pathak said.

"We have reached a point where China policy isn't only -- or even mainly -- a foreign policy question."

"Confronting the biggest policy issue in a generation is not an option, but an unavoidable responsibility for the new prime minister," the two said. "Let's ensure that short-termism and partisanship doesn't prevent him from meeting the challenge."

The authors also suggested that the U.K. pass a "Democracy Defence Act" to build resilience against ever-increasing interference and influence, building on the success of the National Security and Investment Act 2023.

They also urged the U.K. government to place China in the Enhanced Tier of the two-tier Foreign Influence Registration Scheme (FIRS).

The scheme is designed to strengthen the resilience of the U.K. political system against covert foreign influence and "provide greater assurance around the activities of certain foreign powers or entities that are a national security risk," according to the FIRS factsheet.

They also argued that a review was needed of the resources provided to U.K. intelligence agencies to allow them to have the ability to detect and confront the pervasive influence of the Chinese Communist Party's United Front Work Department.