The former head of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) urged countries to show China the economic consequences it will face if it invades Taiwan.
Western countries need to make it clear that China would face “severe economic consequences” if it moves against the independent republic of Taiwan, said former NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen during a visit to the island on Jan. 5.
He met with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen on his first visit to the island since he stepped down from his old post.
Communist China has claimed Taiwan as a rogue province since 1949 at the end of the Chinese Civil War, despite the willingness of its inhabitants to remain independent.
The CCP has been ramping up pressure on Taiwan to assert its sovereignty over the island, with continuous air missions conducted in its waters over the past three years.
The former NATO chief and ex-Danish Prime Minister called for the European Union and NATO to train Taiwanese troops and plan for painful economic sanctions on Beijing in case of an attack.
Rasmussen, who was the leader of the trans-Atlantic alliance from 2009 to 2014, said that EU and NATO members should be prepared to let mainland China “think twice” about an invasion.
Rasmussen Compares Taiwan’s Status to Ukraine
The former Danish leader also compared Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to mainland Chinese military aggression toward Taiwan.“The parallels with Russia and Ukraine are hard to ignore. We must not make the same mistakes with Xi Jinping that we did with Vladimir Putin,” he said.
He remarked that “the most important way to deter a Chinese move on Taiwan is to ensure a Ukrainian victory in the current conflict.
“If Russia can gain territory and establish a new status quo by force, it will set a precedent. Dictators everywhere will learn that, ultimately, military aggression works.”
He said that the West must be unified to ensure a victory for Ukraine in order to deter a future Chinese invasion of the island.
European and NATO powers were “too naive” prior to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and are risking repeating the same mistakes with Beijing, he added.
Rasmussen believes that the Chinese communist leader Xi Jinping will watch closely the war in Ukraine before he decides on any attack on Taiwan.
“The world hasn’t so far paid sufficient attention to the tensions in the Taiwan Strait,” Rasmussen told reporters in Taipei.
“And we should realize 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.
The West Should Exploit China’s Economic Vulnerabilities
Beijing is heavily reliant on imports and foreign investment to drive its economy, making it more vulnerable to economic sanctions compared with Moscow.“China is far more reliant on global supply chains than Russia. Spelling out the severe economic consequences of any attack now would be a powerful deterrent,” Rasmussen said.
Rasmussen admitted that severe sanctions on Beijing would hit the EU hard since China was deeply embedded within the global economy.
However, he said that said the war in Ukraine had begun a shift within Western nations when it comes to being dependent on less democratic countries.
Beijing Increasingly Assertive on Taiwan
Xi has made what he calls the “reunification” of Taiwan to the mainland a top priority that cannot be passed on to future generations.He said that China reserves the right to use force to bring Taiwan under its control if necessary and his regime opposes any official exchanges with Taiwan.
Beijing has reacted with fury over a series of visits by Western politicians to the island.
China ramped up military tensions last year when it launched its largest war games since the 1990s in reaction to a visit by then-House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in August 2022.
Calls for European Arms for Taiwan
Rasmussen recommended that the West should also help arm Taiwan’s military forces, which are mainly armed with weapons made domestically and from the United States.In the eight years leading to the war in Ukraine last year, NATO advisers had been training Ukraine’s armed forces.
“We could do exactly the same with servicemen and women from Taiwan. We could conduct such training and exercises on European soil,” Rasmussen said.
Although the United States remains Taiwan’s main ally, he also called for European military and cyber defense equipment to be shared with Taipei, “to make Taiwan capable to defend itself by itself.”
“All those who believe in a democratic Taiwan and rule-based international order must work to ensure Ukraine prevails. It is for the people of Ukraine and people of Taiwan to decide their own future, so the free world must give them our support,” he said.
“We should not repeat this mistake by being too weak, too accommodating when it comes to China,” Rasmussen concluded.
He said that NATO should not play a direct role in the Indo-Pacific region, preferring that the so-called “Quad” nations of the United States, Japan, India, and Australia take the lead in maintaining peace and stability there.
Taipei has long stated that its citizens reserve the right to decide their right to self-determination and that the mainland’s claims are void, as Beijing has never governed the island.
Taiwan’s relations with Moscow have been facing a setback after Putin’s decision to tighten his relationship with Xi in the wake of the Ukraine conflict led his government to willingly back Beijing’s claim to the island.
The island’s economic affairs ministry said it would expand the scope of sanctions against Russia and Belarus by cutting them off from high-tech, dual-use tech, and has pledged millions in aid to the government in Ukraine.
