By Ben Blanchard
Taipei (Reuters) -as Russia defeats Ukraine, it will encourage China's movements in the direction of Taiwan and Taipei hopes that Kyiv will be out of victory, said a senior uniformed Taiwanese military officer this week in a rare visit to Europe.
Taiwan, which regards China as its own territory, has found an increasingly sympathetic ear in parts of Central and Eastern Europe since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, although almost all European countries only maintained formal diplomatic ties with Beijing and not Taipei.
In contrast to the United States, Europe no longer sells large ticket defense items to Taiwan, afraid of entering into the wrath of Beijing, and visiting Europe by Taiwanese military officers are very unusual.
Hsieh Jih-Sheng, deputy head of the general staff for information at the Ministry of Defense of Taiwan, said that the war in Ukraine in Taipei was being tackled in Taipei on Tuesday.
“We wish their victory,” he said, in images streamed online of the event, where he was personally present with a completely military uniform and spoke in English.
“There are many things that we can learn from the Ukrainian theater that we can raise for our overall readiness,” Hsieh added. “The defeat of Ukraine will indicate that China can take more aggression against Taiwan.”
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to a request for comments. On Monday, the presence of Foreign Minister of Taiwan, Lin Chia-Long sentenced to the same forum and said that Taiwan wanted to exaggerate the China threat.
Hsieh raised the alarm about China and the joint military exercises from Russia.
“If China moves to Taiwan, while Russia increases its offensive in Ukraine, the world could be confronted with a geopolitical crisis with two front,” he added.
“Europe today are fighting for your own safety. If you help us, we can prevent the possibility of war in the Indo-Pacific.” Taiwan participated in the Western sanctions against Russia and has also studied how the much smaller Ukrainian army was able to fight its enormous neighbor, attract lessons for how it could deal with any Chinese attack.
In the past five years, Taiwan has complained of elevated Chinese military pressure, both war games and “gray zone” activities that stop open fighting, but are designed to put pressure, including cyber attacks and submarine cable sabotage.
Hsieh said that Taiwan and Europe could learn from each other.
“We have been dealing with the Chinese gray zone activities for years.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; adaptation by Lincoln Feast.)
