Britain and allies must help Ukraine win war to prevent China’s invasion of Taiwan, - former Defense Secretary Shapps
Former British Secretary of Defense Grant Shapps called on Britain and its allies to help Ukraine defeat Russia, otherwise China will receive a signal to attack Taiwan and then the West will suffer global consequences.
According to Censor.NET, citing Ukrinform, Shepps wrote about this in a column for The Sunday Times.
Shapps emphasized that China has clearly expressed its position on "reunification" with a democratic Taiwan hundreds of times. However, according to him, despite the abundance of information available, "the world somehow doesn't understand the importance of this upcoming war in the Indo-Pacific," and "if you think a conflict on a small island 6,000 miles away doesn't matter...that's a huge mistake."
"The world could be plunged into a deep recession that would cost trillions and disrupt sectors from technology to defense, likely surpassing the financial losses from COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine combined," Shapps wrote.
The British politician noted that when Putin marched on Kyiv, he hoped to capture it in a few days, but "brave Ukrainians were not prepared for their democracy to be crushed by their big neighbor." Britain, he said, was the first of Ukraine's allies to rise to the challenge, providing weapons, intelligence, and training to help counter Putin's illegal war, because "this tyrant must be confronted, not appeased." According to Shapps, Russia's war against Ukraine is "an existential test for the West."
"Will the Russian-Ukrainian war escalate into a global conflict? Do not doubt it: China and other authoritarian states want us to fail. These countries have little regard for democracy and the rights of their citizens. Their goal is to change the world order in favor of their own totalitarian regimes," Shapps said, emphasizing that the West does not seem as concerned as it should be.
Therefore, according to him, if "we don't do everything we can to make sure that Putin loses now, we will suffer the consequences not only here in Europe, but in the Indo-Pacific and around the world."
"The price of allowing the use of our weapons, even (for targets - ed.) inside Russia, will be minimal compared to the consequences of Putin's victory - and thus will allow others to believe that it is possible to delay the time when the West will not be interested in this. So now is the time not only to authorize the use of our long-range Storm Shadow missiles, but also to do so without waiting for Washington's decision," the former minister said.
Shapps called on the British government to double its defense support for Ukraine, "despite the cost of replenishing ammunition stocks," and urged "the rest of NATO and other civilized countries to follow suit."
"These costs are nothing compared to the potentially devastating consequences of a full-scale conflict between China and Taiwan. Doubling our support for Ukraine today would not only be the right thing to do, but it would also make an invasion of Taiwan much less likely, thereby protecting us from a recession or even a depression," Shapps said.
Earlier, Shapps called on the British government to lift restrictions on Ukraine's use of Storm Shadows missiles to strike at Russian territory.
