The EU should clearly communicate to China the consequences it would face if it attempted to alter the "status quo" in the Taiwan Strait by force, former NATO secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen said yesterday.
The EU "can play an important role" in deterring China from changing the "status quo" by force, Rasmussen, who served as head of NATO from 2009 to 2014, said in an interview.
Rasmussen pointed to the strong trade relations between European countries and China, saying that if the EU was to cut those ties, it would have "severe consequences for the Chinese economy."
Photo: CNA
"We should tell that in advance so that China does not miscalculate, but know exactly what [would] happen if [it tried] to change the status quo," said Rasmussen, who was visiting Taiwan to speak at the Yushan Forum hosted by the Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation, a government-funded think tank.
However, Rasmussen, who is currently chairman of the Alliance of Democracies Foundation, a non-profit organization he founded in 2017, said that it remains crucial for Taiwan to demonstrate its resolve to defend itself.
Rasmussen said he appreciated President William Lai’s (賴清德) pledge to raise Taiwan’s annual defense budget to 3 percent of GDP given the constant threats Taiwan faces.
"It’s for Taiwan to demonstrate to the world that [it is] serious about keeping the status quo" and "defending yourself against a possible attack," said Rasmussen, who served as Denmark’s prime minister for seven years before taking charge of the western military alliance.
Rasmussen also urged NATO members to increase their defense budgets to 4 percent of GDP in light of threat from Russia, arguing that "investment in defense is today the most important investment [one] can make."
"Obviously we would rather spend money on schools, on hospitals, on childcare [and] all those things, but all those welfare benefits are worth zero if you are not able to protect and defend your society," he said.
Rasmussen acknowledged that achieving such a goal would be "challenging," but he noted "we cannot count on an automatic help from the US."
His comments came a day after he warned against "rely[ing] on the White House" during his address at the Yushan Forum, amid the recent rift between the US and the EU over Washington’s shift in its position on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and tariff threats against the bloc.
According to NATO data, the 32 members of the military alliance have agreed to commit 2 percent of their GDP to defense spending since 2014, with 23 estimated to have achieved that goal by last year.
The data showed that only Poland met the threshold Rasmussen called for, with defense spending reaching 4.12 percent of GDP last year, the highest among NATO members.
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