Mother country getting into terrible conspiracy (11)

I believe the answer is:

machination

'conspiracy' is the definition.
(thesaurus)

'mother country getting into terrible' is the wordplay.
'mother' becomes 'ma' (ma is a kind of mother).
'country' becomes 'china' (China is an example**).
'getting' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'terrible' is an anagram indicator.
'into' with letters rearranged gives 'tion'.
'ma'+'china'+'tion'='MACHINATION'

(Another definition for machination that I've seen is " Plot".)

I've seen this clue in The Telegraph.

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