Europe ‘naive’ on Taiwan threats, says former NATO chief

Anders Fogh Rasmussen says the mistakes made in the run up to the invasion of Ukraine risked being repeated with Beijing.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen meets the press in Taipei on Thursday. Picture: AFP

European powers must do more to dissuade China from invading Taiwan, including being prepared to unleash painful economic sanctions and train Taiwanese troops, the former head of NATO said on Thursday.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who is visiting Taipei, said European and NATO powers were “too naive” in the run-up to ­Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and risked repeating the same mistake with Beijing.

Taiwan lives under constant threat of invasion by China, which claims the self-ruled democracy as part of its territory to be taken one day.

“The world hasn’t so far paid sufficient attention to the tensions in the Taiwan Strait,” Mr Rasmussen said. “And we should realise that the conflict between China and Taiwan has, and will have, global repercussions. So we have a global interest in preventing those tensions from escalating into an armed conflict.”

Mr Rasmussen argued that while the US must remain Taiwan’s primary military ally, European and NATO powers should be prepared to put in place policies that will make Beijing “think twice” about an invasion.

“I think we should react determinedly if China were to attack Taiwan, and we should replace strategic ambiguity with strategic clarity,” he said.

In the years leading up to Moscow’s invasion of its neighbour, European powers began training Ukrainian troops.

“We could do exactly the same with servicemen and women from Taiwan, we could conduct such training and exercises on European soil,” Mr Rasmussen said.

President Xi Jinping, China’s most assertive leader in a generation, has made clear that what he calls the “reunification” of Taiwan cannot be passed on to future generations.

Last year saw a spike in tensions as Beijing ramped up military pressure and launched its largest war games in decades to protest against a visit by then US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi in August.

China opposes any official exchanges with Taiwan, and has reacted with growing anger at a flurry of visits by Western politicians to the island. Asked about Mr Rasmussen’s visit, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said on Wednesday that “any attempts to create ‘two Chinas’ or ‘one China, one Taiwan’ are doomed to fail”.

AFP