China is not an adversary, but it poses serious challenges, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Wednesday after the alliance agreed for the first time to include Beijing’s threats in a plan to guide its future strategy.
While Russia’s war against Ukraine dominated the NATO summit discussions, China has won a place among the Western Alliance’s most worrying security concerns.
“We are now facing an era of strategic competition… China is significantly increasing its forces, including in the field of nuclear weapons, harassing its neighbors, including Taiwan,” Stoltenberg said. “China is not our adversary, but we need to be aware of the serious challenges it poses.
The alliance’s latest plan – or strategic concept – was agreed in 2010 and did not mention China. The new one states that China’s policy challenges NATO’s interests, security and values, although Russia remains the most significant and direct threat to security.
“PRC [People’s Republic of China] malicious hybrid and cyber operations and its confrontational rhetoric and misinformation target allies and harm the union’s security, “the strategic concept said, noting a deepening partnership with Russia in their shared attempts to” undermine rules of international order, including space, cyberspace and marine areas ”.
NATO has warned that the Chinese government is “rapidly expanding” its nuclear capabilities without increasing transparency or engaging in good faith arms control, and is using the economic lever to “create strategic dependencies and increase its influence.”
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has accused Beijing of undermining the rule-based order “in which we believe we have helped build”. “If China disputes it in one way or another, we will oppose it,” he said.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, attending his first NATO summit in Madrid, warned that strengthening relations between Beijing and Moscow poses a risk to all democracies.
“Just as Russia seeks to recreate a Russian or Soviet empire, the Chinese government is looking for friends, whether it’s through economic support to build alliances to undermine what has historically been a Western alliance in places like the Indo-Pacific.” he said at Wednesday’s summit.
Albanese said Australia had been subjected to “economic coercion” by China and called on democratic leaders to seek trade diversification.
Australia, South Korea, Japan and New Zealand were invited to the Madrid summit to focus more on the Indo-Pacific region. Albanese’s goal was to elevate the region as a second theater of strategic competition with NATO members engaged in Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.
Addressing his first NATO summit, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern warned of a “more assertive” China, but called for more diplomatic commitment. New Zealand has recently hardened its tone amid Beijing’s growing presence in the South Pacific, in part due to the signing of a security pact between China and the Solomon Islands.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijiang responded by saying that NATO must stop “attempts to start a new Cold War.”
“Stop trying to confuse Asia and the world after you confuse Europe,” he said. “What they have to do is give up their Cold War way, the zero-sum games, and stop doing things that make enemies.
The Prime Minister of Japan Fumio Kishida said that the invasion of Ukraine has shaken the basis of rules and order. “Europe’s security and the security of the Indo-Pacific region cannot be separated,” he said in his opening remarks.
On the way to the summit, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that the Russian invasion of Ukraine had shown the need for extra vigilance and caution regarding potential Chinese actions against Taiwan.
“I just think it’s very important that countries around the world can’t read the events in Europe and conclude that the world will just stand idly by if the borders are changed by force,” he said. “This is one of the most important lessons we are learning from Ukraine.
UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss was clearer, calling for faster action to help Taiwan with defense weapons, a key requirement for Ukraine after the invasion.
“There is always a tendency – and we have seen this before the war in Ukraine – there is always a tendency to wish, to hope that no more bad things will happen, and to wait until it is too late,” Truss told the United States Foreign Office. Kingdom Committee on Matters.
“We had to do things earlier, we had to deliver the defense weapons to Ukraine earlier. We need to learn this lesson about Taiwan. Every piece of equipment we send takes months of training, so the sooner we do it, the better. ”
With Reuters and AAP
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