In the scenario that China might one day invade Taiwan, Beijing will enlist Russia’s help to tie up NATO forces in Europe, according to a prediction by NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte.

Rutte, in a fresh interview with The New York Times, engaged in a rare bit of public speculation and grand strategy chessboard gaming regarding potential future moves by the two nuclear armed powers who have struck an “unlimited partnership” of the last few years.

He described that if China made a move against Taiwan, President Xi Jinping “would first make sure that he makes a call to his very junior partner in all of this” – in reference to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

This isn’t the first time that Rutte has branded Putin the Chinese president’s subordinate in public remarks, in something clearly meant as a jab at Moscow and aimed at belittling the Russian leader.

In such a development, Xi would tell the Kremlin leader that Russia needs to “keep them busy in Europe by attacking NATO territory,” Rutte said.

“That is most likely the way this will progress,” he added, in an interview where he generally heaped a lot of praise on President Trump, including in the following:

“The American administration completely takes the view and shares it with the Europeans that this war in Ukraine is crucial for the defense of NATO territory going forward and that we have to make sure that Ukraine is in the strongest possible position to stop the Russians from taking more territory, and that when it comes to a cease-fire or, even better, a peace deal, that Ukraine with some help will be able to prevent Putin from ever attacking Ukraine again in the future.”

One end result of Trump putting pressure on Europe to take a stronger and more lead role in shouldering the common defense burden is that “The Europeans have now cobbled together $35 billion in military aid this year to deliver to Ukraine, which is more than last year.”

He said this came alongside the US expecting Europeans to “take more of the burden when it comes to the concrete support to Ukraine.”

Watch the part of the interview where Rutte assumes China and Russia will coordinate action related to future moves on Taiwan:

NATO secretary-general Mark Rutte says if Xi Jinping decides to attack Taiwan, he’ll call up his “junior partner” Putin and tell him to “keep them busy in Europe” by simultaneously attacking NATO territory. Rutte suggests this is one reason why Trump is so supportive of NATO pic.twitter.com/zsu1hlmJW7

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) July 6, 2025

One additional area where Rutte praised Trump is on breaking the “deadlock” with Putin. “He is the one who broke the deadlock with Putin. When he became president in January, he started these discussions with Putin, and he was the only one who was able to do this,” the NATO chief described.

“This had to happen. A direct dialogue between the American president and the president of the Russian Federation,” he added. But Rutte also acknowledged that this has stopped progressing of late. As for the Moscow-Beijing relationship, he is likely assuming too much in terms of closeness between these longtime, historic rivals turned ‘friends’.