British Foreign Minister Firmly Warns President Putin And President Xi: West Against Dictatorship!

British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss. (Wikimedia Commons/US Department of State)

JAKARTA - Britain on Friday warned Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping that the West will stand together to fight for democracy against dictatorships, bolder than at any time since the Cold War.

Western leaders say the 21st century will be defined by struggles between democracies and rivals such as China and Russia which they say challenge the post-Cold War consensus militarily, technologically and economically.

Speaking in Australia, British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said the West must come together to respond to global threats, deepen ties with democracies in the Indo-Pacific and "confront global aggressors".

The global aggressor is "bold in a way we haven't seen since the Cold War," Truss said in a speech at the Lowy Institute in Sydney.

"They are trying to export dictatorships as a service around the world. That is why regimes like Belarus, North Korea and Myanmar find their closest allies in Moscow and Beijing," Foreign Minister Truss said quoting Reuters on January 21.

The West, continued Truss, must work with allies such as Australia, Israel, India, Japan, and Indonesia to "confront global aggressors", especially in the Pacific.

"It's time for the free world to stand tall," said Foreign Minister Truss

The West calls Russia a dictatorial kleptocracy governed by a mercurial elite, who has engaged in irresponsible adventures such as the 2014 annexation of Crimea, attempts to interfere in US and European elections, and a string of high-profile espionage and assassination attempts abroad.

Meanwhile, Russian officials say the West is full of divisions, gripped by Russophobia, and has no right to lecture Moscow on how to act.

On the other hand, China says the West still thinks they can rule the whole world in a colonial way, saying Beijing will determine its own path without interference from foreign powers.

Amid rising tensions in Ukraine, the West is trying to figure out what to do if Russia invades its neighbor.

Foreign Minister Truss warned President Putin to "quit and withdraw from Ukraine before he makes a major strategic mistake."

Foreign Minister Truss further argued, "The Kremlin has not learned the lesson of history" and that "an invasion will only lead to a terrible quagmire and loss of life, as we know from the Soviet-Afghan war and the conflict in Chechnya."

To note, more than 15.000 Soviet troops disappeared in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989, while hundreds of thousands of Afghans died. Meanwhile, the US-led war in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2021 caused more than 3.500 deaths among the international military coalition. And some 241.000 people have died in the war zones of Afghanistan and Pakistan since 2001, according to the Costs of War project at Brown University's Watson Institute.