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Europe needs to ‘step up to the plate’ to counter Chinese threats, says former Nato chief

Anders Fogh Rasmussen

Credit: AFP PHOTO / ERIC FEFERBERG

The deployment of one of Britain’s new aircraft carriers to East Asia next year would send a “clear signal” that European nations are ready to counter Chinese expansionist policies in the Indo-Pacific, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the former Nato secretary-general, has told the Telegraph. 

In July it was reported that the UK’s military chiefs were considering plans to base the £3.1 billion HMS Queen Elizabeth in Asia, where it could conduct naval exercises with allies including the United States and Japan. 

Mr Rasmussen, who served as Nato chief from 2009 -2014 and as Danish prime minister from 2001-2009, believes that the UK, should it deploy to the Indo-Pacific, could raise the bar for a more robust European presence in the region. 

He urged European nations to support regional allies with more freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea, where it is feared an increasingly assertive Beijing may try to control access to key shipping routes. 

“The UK has stepped up its efforts and that should be followed by other major European states,” he said, advocating the coordination of a wide coalition of democracies to challenge the strategic economic and military threats of a rising Communist China. 

“The major European nations should contribute, and it should be discussed within the European Union to elaborate and pursue a common European cause,” he added. 

The HMS Queen Elizabeth may be deployed to East Asia next year 

Credit: Gareth Fuller/PA

“This signals to China that China cannot continue their divide and rule approach and try to split Europe when it comes to a Chinese approach. We are in this together and we are in this together with the United States and the major Asian countries – Japan, India, and I would add to that also Australia.” 

Mr Rasmussen, who now runs Rasmussen Global, a political and security consultancy, and founded the non-profit Alliance of Democracies group, believes China’s more aggressive foreign policy under President Xi Jinping requires a shift to a more robust EU response. 

“Europeans should take more responsibility for security, not only our own but security around the world,” he said. 

China has displayed increasing swagger in its foreign policy this year, in particular, as the world struggles to contain a pandemic that has killed close to 1.3m people. 

In the South and East China Seas, where it has laid disputed claims to rocks, reefs and waters, it has conducted multiple military drills and staged provocative air and naval moves in potential flashpoints near Taiwan and Japan. 

The US has conducted several freedom of navigation operations in the Indo-Pacific this year

Credit: Jason Tarleton/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

At the same time, Beijing has engaged in a deadly border dispute with India, and trade tensions have escalated with both the US and Australia. 

Hopes for engagement with China were more optimistic just over a decade ago when, as prime minister, Mr Rasmussen signed a 2008 special strategic partnership with Beijing in the era of President Hu Jintao. 

“We hoped that a gradual liberalisation of the Chinese economy would also lead to some political progress, some liberalisation politically, but since Xi Jinping took over in 2012 we are seeing a more nationalistic and a more aggressive Chinese approach,” he said. 

“Hong Kong has been an eye opener for many in Europe,” he added, referring to Beijing’s harsh crackdown on anti-government protests, effectively ending the one country, two systems principle established when the UK handed the city back to China in 1997 to guarantee its rights and freedoms.  

But it is on the sensitive question of Taiwan where Mr Rasmussen believes Europe needs to “step up to the plate and clearly support the US in the defence of democracy.”

The Communist Party of China claims Taiwan as its own territory, even though it has never ruled the island of 24 million, which has its own democratically-elected government, military and foreign policy. 

Beijing has intensified its efforts to squeeze Taiwan out of the global arena, blocking its attendance at international bodies while protesting that Taipei has no right to form its own bilateral alliances with any other country. It has threatened to invade the island if it does not agree to annexation. 

Rasmussen believes the EU should do more to defend democratic Taiwan

Credit: David Chang/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Mr Rasmussen called for the EU to show its support by concluding a bilateral investment deal and by pushing for its inclusion in international organisations where it could make a valuable contribution. 

This week Taiwan, which has had one of the most successful Covid-19 strategies in the world, was excluded from the World Health Organisation’s global assembly under pressure from China. 

In the worst-case scenario of an invasion or blockade of the island, Europe should join forces with the US, said Mr Rasmussen. 

“I don’t think the Americans would allow an invasion of Taiwan because a Communist Chinese takeover would be such a blow to the free world that it would be similar to a collapse of the whole idea of upholding democracy and freedom,” he said. 

While some Nato countries might assist the US militarily, “the European Union should assist Taiwan economically” to demonstrate that Chinese aggression would be met by a “common front of all the world’s democracies.”

He added: “Let me stress, if all the world’s democracies join forces then we represent half of the world economy. That would be a very serious blow to Beijing.”

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