Ursula von der Leyen said Thursday she would seek to “deter China” from invading Taiwan as part of her bid for a second term as European Commission president.
“The Indo-Pacific has become a decisive region for the world’s future,” she outlined in her manifesto, entitled Europe’s Choice.
“We will work with Japan, Korea, New Zealand and Australia with whom we face common challenges … This includes our collective efforts to deploy the full range of our combined statecraft to deter China from unilaterally changing the status quo by military means, particularly over Taiwan,” she said, making her clearest statement to date.
The U.S. believes such a war could happen by 2027, which would be in the middle of von der Leyen’s potential second mandate.
The four countries von der Leyen vowed to work with on Taiwan are also listed as NATO’s four Indo-Pacific partners.
Von der Leyen warned against the rapid rise in China’s military expenditure in her manifesto.
“Combined EU spending on defence from 2019 to 2021 increased by 20 percent,” she said in the document. “In that time, Russia’s defence spending increased by almost 300 percent and China’s by almost 600 percent.”
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