Former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen is visiting Taiwan to discuss democratic freedom, Chinese military threats, and regional stability. Rasmussen arrived on Tuesday and will stay for three days to meet with President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), Vice President Lai Ching-te (賴清德), and other top officials.
Rasmussen is also a former prime minister of Denmark and is the first former NATO secretary general to visit Taiwan. Rasmussen’s itinerary includes meeting with Foreign Minister Joseph Wu (吳釗燮), lawmakers, and think tank scholars.
Rasmussen founded the Alliance of Democracies Foundation in 2017 to strengthen the ties between democracies around the world. The foundation began hosting the annual Copenhagen Democracy Summit in 2018 and invited international heads of state to attend.
Foreign Minister Wu and President Tsai have both spoken at the foundation’s previous summits. Tsai’s summit speeches over the past couple of years have called attention to Taiwan’s democracy, as well as stability and security issues in the Taiwan Strait.