US urges UK to 'step up' efforts to defend Taiwan amid growing threat of Chinese invasion

Veerle Nouwens, an Indo-Pacific expert at the Royal United Services Institute, said while the UK had elevated Taiwan as a security issue, “it’s not clear how that would be translated into actual policy yet.” The UK and Europe needed a “wider discussion” about their role in a Taiwan scenario that had implications for their own security, she said. “It’s about burden-sharing, wider deterrence, and anticipating what secondary or tertiary effects there might be following an attack on Taiwan,” she added. “It’s not necessarily just a question of whether the UK or Europe should or shouldn’t send military equipment to Taiwan. It’s bigger than that.”