British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has hinted that he will abandon plans to declare China a "threat" to national security as part of a major review of British foreign policy, Politico reports.

He softened his remarks on Beijing and twice refused to support plans by his predecessor, Liz Truss, to elevate China to "threat" status in an upcoming update of the British government's foreign and military priorities. The original version of the UK's integrated review, published last year, described China only as a "systemic competitor."

Asked if he would push forward with Truss' plan to tighten the U.K. position, Sunak first called China a "systemic threat."“My view on China is straightforward,” he said. “I think that China unequivocally poses a systemic threat — well, a systemic challenge — to our values and our interests, and is undoubtedly the biggest state-based threat to our economic security, let me put it that way. That’s how I think about China.”

Then he added: “But I also think that China is an indisputable fact of the global economy and we’re not going to be able to resolve shared global challenges like climate change, or public health, or indeed actually dealing with Russia and Ukraine, without having a dialogue with them.”

Raising China to "threat" status would put Beijing on par with Russia and have serious implications for British foreign policy in the region.

Instead, Sunak's words represent a softening of position. His more ambivalent tone brings him closer to Boris Johnson, who, as prime minister, stressed the importance of dialogue and trade with China.

 When asked if he was reneging on his commitment to reclassify China as a threat, Sunak said that the position he outlined was "highly aligned with our allies" and their own security strategies. “If you look at the U.S. national security strategy that was published just a couple of weeks ago, and if you look at how they describe their view of China and how to deal with it, I think you’ll find that it’s very similar to how I’ve just described it,” he said. “The Canadians, the Australians — their versions of that strategy all say similar things,” he said.

He also declined to say whether Britain should supply weapons to Taiwan, as Truss ambiguously promised when she was foreign secretary. “We’re considering all these things as part of the refresh of the integrated review,” he said.