Former Australian prime minister Paul Keating has accused UK's Foreign Secretary Liz Truss of making “demented” comments about Chinese military aggression and urged the British foreign secretary to hurry “back to her collapsing, disreputable government”.

Keating, in a blistering op-ed, also said Britain “suffers delusions of grandeur and relevance deprivation” and its tilt to the Indo-Pacific lacks credibility.

The former Labor leader, who served as prime minister from 1991 to 1996, has long pushed for better economic and political engagement with China.

Double standards

Keating aimed at Truss, who visited Australia for meetings with counterparts last week after a report said she had warned that China could use a Russian invasion of Ukraine as an opportunity to launch aggression of its own in the Indo-Pacific. 

“I don’t think we can rule that out,” Truss was reported as saying during an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

“Russia is working more closely with China than it ever has. Aggressors are working in concert and I think it’s incumbent on countries like ours to work together.”

Her claims were immediately rebuffed by both Russia and China, in addition to being mocked by Keating who described them as "demented".

“Remarks by the British foreign secretary Liz Truss that China could engage in military aggression in the Pacific, encouraged by Russia’s contingent moves against Ukraine, are nothing short of demented,” Keating said in an op-ed posted on the Pearls and Irritations public policy blog on Saturday. “Not simply irrational, demented.”

Keating also said the reality was that Britain “does not add up to a row of beans when it comes to east Asia”.

“Britain took its main battle fleet out of east Asia in 1904 and finally packed it in with its ‘East of Suez’ policy in the 1970s. And it has never been back,” Keating said in comments that gained prominence when reported by the Australian newspaper on Monday.

A "failed" British system

The former PM said the British and Australian governments were “kidding the rest of us that their ‘cooperation’ added up to some viable policy”, in reference to the AUKUS agreement which came to light following the betrayal of European ally France.

“Truss would do us all a favor by hightailing it back to her collapsing, disreputable government, leaving Australia to find its way in Asia.”

During her visit, Truss addressed the Lowy Institute in Sydney and 'warned' Russia that any invasion of Ukraine would only lead to “a terrible quagmire and loss of life” on the scale of the Soviet-Afghan war.

The Kremlin has repeatedly denied any intention of invading Ukraine, yet NATO's encroachment and the military aids the US is keen on sending to Ukraine are increasing tensions over Russia's borders.