Democracies must band together with closer security, trade and technology ties to counter the rise of China, Rishi Sunak said.
In his first major intervention on global affairs since leaving 10 Downing Street, he said existing alliances such as Nato and traditional free-trade arrangements were not sufficient to respond to Beijing.
He suggested a grouping of democratic market economies could work together to reduce reliance on China for manufacturing and technology and have the combined industrial might to rival the Asian superpower’s capacity to build military equipment.
“In an era of full-spectrum competition, we can’t trade with rivals the same way we do with friends,” he said.
Writing in the Wall Street Journal, he said democracies should band together or risk letting “an authoritarian axis shape a new world order where might makes right, where technology bolsters authoritarianism and curtails individual liberty, and where trade is a weapon of coercion”.
The former prime minister said: “The next decade will be one of the most dangerous yet most transformational periods the world has ever seen. Democratic market states must seize this moment and shape it.
“If they don’t, it will be the axis of authoritarian states — China, Russia, Iran and North Korea — that takes advantage of this opportunity.”
He said “old-fashioned great power competition” is returning in the form of China presenting the US with a “credible economic, technological and military rival for the first time in 40 years”.
In a message to Donald Trump, he said: “The US must realise that no country on its own can face down the axis of authoritarian states.
“But together, democratic market economies can outcompete any rival coalition and deliver peace and prosperity for their people.”
He said a broader alliance than Nato was needed, spanning the Indo-Pacific as well as the the Euro-Atlantic.
Mr Sunak said Jiangnan in China has more capacity than “every US shipyard put together”, but a combined allied production strategy with South Korea and Japan would allow competition with China on building up naval fleets.
The economic strength of a democratic alliance could also persuade “key global swing states” to back the US and its allies rather than China and Russia.
Greater trade among allies would also reduce the “economic pain” from breaking away from China in strategically important areas.
Countries that fail to restrict technology transfer to China or leave themselves dependent on Chinese technology “should be excluded from reciprocal free trade”.
“If China overtakes us in artificial intelligence, it will gain not only economic but strategic primacy, given its potential military applications,” he warned.
