NATO’s first new strategic strategy in a decade will cite China as a concern for the first time, but Member States still disagree on how to describe the country with the world’s largest military and Beijing ‘s relationship with Russia, they say. NATO diplomats. Both a summit of the rich G7 industrial democracies now under way in Germany and a NATO summit starting in Madrid will address the deepening of China’s ties with Russia amid Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and what is seen as China’s growing tendency to bend its geopolitical power and forced economic power abroad. The new strategic concept, to be adopted at the NATO summit in Madrid on Wednesday and Thursday, will address growing threats from Russia and, for the first time, China, the world’s second-largest economy, US officials said last week. NATO diplomats say the United States and the United Kingdom have pushed for a more dynamic language that reflects what they see as China’s growing military ambitions and growing concern that it may attack the democratically ruled island of Taiwan, which Beijing owns. of the ground. France and Germany – given the significant European industrial investment in China – meanwhile favor more measured reports, NATO diplomats said on condition of anonymity, as the document was still being finalized. A White House official expressed confidence that the NATO document would include “strong” language for China, but said negotiations were ongoing ahead of the Madrid summit. At the G7 summit on Monday, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters that the NATO strategy paper “will speak in unprecedented ways about the challenge posed by China”. One diplomat said a compromise was being reached that would characterize China as a “systemic challenge” and include a balancing act referring to a “willingness to work in areas of common interest” with Beijing. The negotiators are further adapting how to describe the relationship between China and Russia, with the Czech Republic and Hungary strongly opposing the term “strategic convergence” to define it, one diplomat said. China’s foreign ministry said the sole purpose of the West’s claims about Chinese threats was to contain and suppress China’s growth and maintain US hegemony.
China’s “global ambitions”
The United Kingdom has recently adopted a language that describes Russia as an “acute, immediate threat” and China as a “strategic challenge”. The Pentagon’s latest annual report to the US Congress underscored the importance of “responding to the rhythm presented by the increasingly capable army of the People’s Republic of China and its global ambitions.” US officials stressed the importance of China’s inclusion in NATO’s updated strategic vision and, therefore, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea were invited to the NATO summit for the first time. The issue was to signal that NATO is not “taking our eye off the ball in China” even when it is focusing on strengthening Ukraine’s defense, one official said. “It has stabilized the democratic world in both Russia and China,” he said. “NATO cannot afford to ignore China,” said a European official. “Europe was a little behind in recognizing this, but views have certainly changed in the light of Hong Kong,” he said, referring to Beijing’s security crackdown on the Asian economic hub. China says Taiwan and Hong Kong are purely internal affairs. Another European official said: “We tried to build an era of politeness and motivation in China and we got President Xi [Jinping]. » Western critics say Xi has led Beijing to a more authoritarian course at home and an aggressive course abroad. “So I think most people would think we need a different approach.” Regarding NATO’s initial mission to respond to Russian threats to the West, the official added: “The NATO operation area is just north of the Tropical Cancer. It has no eastern or western borders. “So I think it’s fair for NATO to see that.”
