《TAIPEI TIMES》 Back Taiwan militarily, Swedish legislators say

By Liu Tzu-hsuan / Staff reporter

Two members of the Swedish parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs have urged their government and the EU to provide military support to Taiwan if needed.

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Swedish lawmaker Joar Forssell of the Liberals on Saturday told Swedish broadcaster SVT that the EU and Sweden must assist Taiwan militarily if China attacks.

His comments came after Swedish lawmaker Markus Wiechel of the Sweden Democrats on Wednesday told the broadcaster the same thing.

Sweden should sell weapons that Taiwan might want to buy without placing restrictions on the type of weapons being sold, Forssell said.

If Taiwan wanted to buy Sweden’s JAS fighter aircraft, “I think we should be happy about it,” he said.

“Offensive weapons are defensive in the case of democracies, because they are used as a deterrent,” he said in response to concerns that Taiwan might act offensively if it had the weapons.

It is “only reasonable” for Sweden to assist Taiwan militarily in the event of a Chinese attack, as authoritarian regimes such as China are trying to challenge democracy on the global stage, he said.

The democratic world should send a signal to China that if such an attack happened, it would come to Taiwan’s aid as it did for Ukraine, he said.

Asked whether it would be possible for Taiwanese troops to receive training in Sweden as Ukrainian troops did, Forssell said that it “would not be unreasonable.”

He acknowledged that there are challenges in doing so, but said: “We cannot let China dictate the terms of Swedish foreign policy.”

“The people of Taiwan have the right to decide their own future... It is our ... duty as free people to support their future freedom,” he wrote on Facebook on Saturday.

He said that Taiwan is “one of the world’s most developed democracies” and “undoubtedly already a state,” as it has territory, people and a legitimate government.

“If the Taiwanese people want to declare independence, it would be extremely presumptuous and strange not to call a spade a spade,” Forssell said.

Wiechel, who led a delegation to visit Taiwan last week, told SVT that “Taiwan should be supported in various ways just as we [Sweden] have supported Ukraine.”

He voiced concerns about stronger and more hostile totalitarian forces during a meeting with President Tsai Ing-wen （蔡英文） on Thursday, calling on democratic allies to side with Taiwan.

Although the Sweden Democrats have increasingly profiled themselves as pro-Taiwanese, the party clarified that Wiechel’s position that the EU should assist Taiwan militarily is not its official stance, SVT reported.

新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES