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During the NATO Summit in London on December 3rd – 4th, China was a main point of the agenda, which marks the first time the alliance looks at another primary adversary in addition to Russia.
At the press point by NATO Secretary General and US President Donald Trump, China was a large part of the discussion, as its recent rise and rapidly improving military capability have placed it on par with Russia as a potential threat to the NATO member states.
“And we are, as an Alliance, for the first time also addressing the security implications of the rise of China,” Stoltenberg started off.
Trump himself also elaborated on why China was an important subject for the summit.
“Well, China has become very powerful and much more so than in the past. They’ve done it, largely, with United States money, because our past Presidents allowed them to steal the cookie cutter. And that’s okay – I don’t begrudge China for that. I begrudge – I’m very disappointed in our past Presidents and leadership. They allowed this to happen. There’s no way it should’ve happened.
And, by the way, I’m doing very well in a deal with China, if I want to make it. If I want to make it. I don’t think it’s “if they want to make it”; it’s “if I want to make it.” And we’ll see what happens. But I’m doing very well, if I want to make a deal. I don’t know that I want to make it, but you’re going to find out pretty soon. We’ll surprise everybody.”
Stoltenberg on the other hand said that focusing also on China wasn’t surprising, since NATO generally doesn’t have a principal enemy outlined in its charter. It has customarily been the Soviet Union, and then Russia, but clearly the rise of China would have its own implications.
“China has the second largest defense budget in the world and has recently displayed a lot of new, modern capabilities including long-range missiles able to reach the whole of Europe and the United States.
They recently displayed a lot of new advanced military weapons systems, including new intercontinental ballistic missiles able to reach the whole of Europe and the United States; hypersonic weapons, gliders; and they also deployed hundreds of intermediate-range missiles that would have violated the INF Treaty if China had been part of that treaty.”
Stoltenberg further emphasized it wasn’t so much that NATO wanted to move into the South China Sea, but rather because China was moving closer:
“We see them in the Arctic. We see them in Africa. We see them investing heavily in European infrastructure. And, of course, we see China in cyberspace.”
The NATO Secretary General furthermore said that moving along, in the future, it would be necessary to include China in arms control, not simply Russia.
“Arms control is something I know that the President is very focused on. I really would like to see progress on arms control with Russia. But also, in one way, we will have to find ways to include China. Because, in the future, China has to be part of the arms control efforts.”
Trump, too, confirmed that he terminated the INF Treaty, because he believed Russia wasn’t living up to its end of the deal, and that Russia showed interest in a new arms control deal. But the US would look into ways to get China in on the deal, either from the start, or later on. But he emphasized that both Moscow and Washington “badly” wanted a new arms control deal.
It is also likely that admitting that China would become a focus on NATO’s suppression efforts, is a sure way of further pushing Moscow and Beijing closer to each other.
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China (or as Trump puts it, Chaeena!) became an enemy for NATO because of a very simple reason: NATO is in dire need of an enemy to justify it’s existence. Some European countries started to doubt if Russia is really an enemy and they also need Russian energy.
Extremist terrorism is NATO’s bastard child and besides, a shapeless, faceless enemy in a faraway land can’t be such an existential threat compared to a “Red menace” or a “Yellow menace” with phallic nuclear ICBMs and whatnot. With Russia out of picture as a mortal enemy in near future, they need another comparable one.
Another point is, the ruling mentality in politicians of west is (and was, probably will be) there can’t be any power besides them, “what if they challenge us and refuse to submit?”
China as a manufacturing, economic and innovation powerhouse must cease to exist in order to survival of the western style economy. A good China (or any other country for that matter) is an obedient and consumer one, so it can be bullied into submission with the threat of sanctions and boycott.
Speaking of boycott, BDS rules!!
NATO is not an alliance – it’s a US neocon thug gang extorting nations for protection money. Cold war is over, NATO. You’re a threat to my nation’s security. FFS, tear down that f’king monstrosity in Belgium and go back to your own evil countries.
Oh but it gets more complicated than that. List includes Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Venezuela … etc. Than there are all the countries that do business with “The Mortal Enemy”, than there are countries that at some point in time entertained the idea of doing business with “The Mortal Enemy”,that there are countries that refuse to make proxy war and/or join sanctions against “The Mortal Enemy”and last but not least – countries that object to Israeli war crimes…And that my friends is just about every non NATO country on the Planet. Remind me again why was NATO established in the first place?
ZIONATO is nothing…LBGTQI-Armies…troubles with Equipment…no one wants to pay their 2% contribution… Kicked out of Inçirlik…Empereur de Jupitèr et tout le Monde Emmanuelle Macaroni du Rothschilde XVI is right about one thing: ZIONATO is Brain-DEAD as f*ck….
NATO, the greatest threat to world peace because it empowers the U.S. to act like a rouge police gang of extortioists.
I was wondering when this would happen. It almost feels that NATO is trying to force China into their own military alliance (likely with Russia) to justify it’s own existence. They need an enemy. ISIS doesn’t do it anymore. It’s all about the money. LOL
And that’s not he only thing.
NATO is a threat to many countries’ sovereignty and freedom, including every European nation (NATO member or not), and needs to be disbanded – may it happen soon.