NATO, in its summit communiqué, plans to criticize China for supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, alliance diplomats said, Report informs referring to The Wall Street Journal.
“There is a greater sense now how the two theaters are linked strategically,” said Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell on a recent visit to Brussels.
One of the few points of agreement between President Biden and his rival in November’s election, Donald Trump, is that China poses a dire security and economic threat to the US and its allies.
NATO first expressed concerns about China in a leaders’ statement in late 2019. In 2022, China for the first time prompted a reference in NATO’s main guiding document, known as the Strategic Concept. China’s “stated ambitions and coercive policies challenge our interests, security and values,” NATO said, citing Beijing’s military buildup and its efforts to use economic coercion, as well as its strategic partnership with Russia.
The alliance’s new emphasis on China and Asia hasn’t sat well with all members. France opposed an internal proposal last year for NATO to post a senior civilian representative in Tokyo, arguing that East Asia is too far from the North Atlantic and member countries should handle relations themselves. Some alliance members from Southern Europe—who are more concerned with illegal migration and threats emanating from the Middle East than with Asia—quietly backed France.
But views on China and its relations with NATO have shifted due to Beijing’s increasingly apparent help for Moscow in Ukraine and China’s unwillingness to condemn the war.
“China has taken a side,” said US Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith last month. If China curtailed provisions to Moscow, she said, “we believe it would have a major impact on Russia’s ability to conduct the war on the ground inside Ukraine.”