TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Chairman of the Alliance of Democracies Foundation (AoD), Anders Fogh Rasmussen, will visit Taiwan from Jan. 3-5, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) announced on Thursday (Dec. 29).

Rasmussen, the former Denmark prime minister and ex-NATO secretary-general, will meet with President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and Vice President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) and will attend a banquet hosted by Foreign Minister Joseph Wu (吳釗燮). He will also have in-depth discussions with legislators and think tank scholars, MOFA said.

Rasmussen has continuously urged the international community to pay attention to the security of the Taiwan Strait and called on democracies to strengthen exchanges and cooperation with Taiwan, enhance democratic resilience and unity, and jointly respond to the expansion of authoritarianism, MOFA said. This trip demonstrates his firm support of Taiwan, it added.

The foreign ministry said it looks forward to "strengthening exchanges and cooperation with international democratic partners in the future to jointly safeguard the shared values of freedom and democracy.”

AoD is a non-profit organization founded in 2017 by Rasmussen and is based in Brussels, Berlin, and Copenhagen. Through its many initiatives and its main annual event, the Copenhagen Democracy Summit, it intends to “become the world’s leading ‘megaphone’ for the cause of democracy,” according to AoD’s website.

In 2019, Wu traveled to Denmark to deliver a speech at the Copenhagen Democracy Summit. Since 2020, Tsai has been invited to give a speech each year, which has greatly boosted the international community's attention and support for Taiwan, Taiwan Strait security, and regional stability, MOFA said.