The Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Mark Rutte, has stated that if mainland China attacks Taiwan, it could incite Russia to take action against NATO.
According to a report by the UK's 'Telegraph,' Rutte made these remarks at the 71st annual session of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, held in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia.
In an interview with the UK’s 'The Economist,' Rutte said that mainland China is continuously strengthening its military capabilities, and is projected to possess 1,000 nuclear warheads and a vast navy by 2030, while also cooperating with North Korea and Iran.
He stated that for all these reasons, "we need to increase our defense spending," and added that mainland China is helping Russia’s war effort in Ukraine by circumventing sanctions, providing dual-use goods, and through other means.
The NATO chief said that if one day mainland China decides to take action against Taiwan, it will definitely not be a single-front war.
Rutte said: “They might first call their secondary partner, that well-known paper tiger in Moscow, and ask it to launch an attack somewhere on NATO territory in Europe.”
He said, “So we have to be prepared for this. This also means that China is a real threat... This is why the link between NATO and the entire Indo-Pacific region is so important, and why we shouldn’t view the Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic regions as two separate theaters of operations.”