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NATO must ensure Taiwan's self-defense: U.K. foreign secretary

ROC Central News Agency

04/28/2022 05:02 PM

London, April 28 (CNA) U.K. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss highlighted the need to assist Taiwan and other democracies in the Indo-Pacific with self-defense to forestall threats in the region, as she spoke to diplomats in the United Kingdom on Wednesday.

"We need to pre-empt threats in the Indo-Pacific, working with our allies like Japan and Australia to ensure the Pacific is protected," Truss said. "And we must ensure that democracies like Taiwan are able to defend themselves."

Truss urged members of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to "strengthen our collective defense," ahead of the NATO summit scheduled to be held in Madrid on June 29-30, as she gave a speech on foreign policy during an Easter banquet event held annually at Mansion House.

Truss said that NATO must ensure that Ukraine, the Western Balkans, and countries like Moldova and Georgia have the resilience and the capabilities to maintain their sovereignty and freedom.

If Finland and Sweden choose to join NATO in response to Russia's aggression, NATO must integrate them as soon as possible, she told the attendees at the banquet including U.K. government officials and foreign diplomats.

"NATO's open-door policy is sacrosanct," she said.

Truss also argued that NATO must "have a global outlook," ready to tackle global threats, as she cited democracies in the Indo-Pacific like Taiwan as an example NATO must help by enhancing its self-defense capability.

Meanwhile, Truss said one of the lessons learned from Russia's invasion of Ukraine was that economy plays a growing role in security, adding that the economic sanctions the West has put on Russia showed that economic access to democracies is "no longer a given," but has to be earned.

Truss singled out China, saying that all countries, including China, must play by the rules. "They will not continue to rise if they don't play by the rules."

Beijing has not condemned Russian aggression, while Russian exports to China rose by almost a third in the first quarter of this year, she said.

Truss said China is also commenting on who should or should not be a member of NATO, rapidly building a military capable of projecting power deep into areas of European strategic interest and has sought to coerce Lithuania -- as the Eastern Europe country has enhanced its ties with Taiwan.

She said that the rise of China "isn't inevitable."

"China needs trade with the G7. We represent half of the global economy. And we have choices," Truss said. "We have shown with Russia the kind of choices we're prepared to make when international rules are violated."

Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) on Thursday expressed gratitude to Truss for her speech about Taiwan, saying that Taiwan would continue to deepen cooperation with the U.K. and like-minded countries to ensure security across the Taiwan Strait and a free and open Indo-Pacific.

Taiwan was determined to stand in full solidarity with democratic partners and carry on with enhancing its self-defense capability to deter aggression and expansion of authoritarian regimes for world peace and prosperity, MOFA added.

(By Chen Yun-yu and Shih Hsiu-chuan)

Enditem/ASG