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Diplomats said China’s growing military and economic presence in the Atlantic region is expected to trigger the rare warning of potential security threats that NATO leaders met on Monday.
From the joint exercises between China and Russia to the West’s concern that China wants to establish military bases in Africa, NATO’s focus reflects China’s primacy in Western foreign policy concerns, especially that of US President Joe Biden.
“This is not about’NATO going to China’,” said Claudia Major, a defense analyst at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. “It’s about’China is coming to Europe, what must we do about it’.”
In 2015, the Sino-Russian joint military exercise brought the Chinese navy into the Mediterranean and the heart of Europe for the first time.Since then, China has established The largest naval fleet And invest in key European infrastructure, including ports and telecommunications networks.
“China [through its navy] They have crossed the Indian Ocean and entered the Gulf, all the way to the Red Sea. They have been in the Mediterranean,” said a British military official who said that China has not yet deployed submarines in the North Atlantic, but it can be in the future.
“You build nuclear submarines for range and stealth. And China really likes to test the border.”
The diplomat said that the joint statement issued by the Transatlantic Security Alliance is still under discussion and may change. This will be the second time NATO leaders have discussed the China issue head-on. The first time was in December 2019, at the insistence of the Donald Trump administration.
But Biden is considered Push for harsher language Rather than the boring term “opportunities and challenges” used at that time.
Nevertheless, how to deal with this issue is a dilemma for this 30-member group, which was originally established in 1949 to deal with the threats of the Cold War era.
Internally, NATO countries are divided on how to treat China: member Hungary, on the one hand, Have a good political relationship And Beijing.
In addition, they are reluctant to confront Beijing in their own Pacific region-although Britain and France follow the United States to deploy ships to execute Free sailing exercises In the South China Sea.
The joint military operations between China and Russia are regarded as particularly unwelcome developments by some NATO members. In addition to annual military exercises, Beijing and Moscow have recently increased joint missile defense exercises and internal security force training.
“Their [the Chinese/Russian] The relationship is transactional and pragmatic, not ideological,” a British military official said. “But cooperation in any form can bring confidence. Confidence is what we should be wary of. “
As the New American Security Center, a bipartisan American think tank, warned in a report January report: “When the interests of Russia and China are the same, Moscow and Beijing can finally coordinate their joint capabilities to challenge US foreign policy.”
Another NATO anxiety Is africa, China can use it to expand its military presence in the Atlantic as part of its long-term goal of becoming a truly global armed force.
General Stephen Townsend, commander of the U.S. Africa Command, Tell the U.S. Senate in April What he called “the world’s largest power competition problem” is what he called China’s efforts to build military useful naval facilities on the west coast of Africa. “I’m talking about a port where they can rearm ammunition and repair naval ships,” he said.
Chinese military experts said that there is no evidence that Beijing is trying to build such a West African base.However, China has Djibouti Base It has also used the international anti-piracy mission in the Gulf of Aden to train thousands of military personnel and has established military relations with countries other than its usual neighbors.
For example, every time a naval contingent completes its deployment, it usually takes a detour on its way home. Some people have been to the Mediterranean and the east and west coasts of Africa.
Another trend that plagues NATO allies is the increasing involvement of Chinese companies in critical infrastructure in Europe, such as through Telecommunications company Huawei.
China’s state-owned shipping company COSCO also owns Controlling stake in Piraeus, Greece’s largest port, is reportedly negotiating to invest in the Hamburg Port Terminal.
This economic connection complicates NATO’s efforts to establish a unified approach to China—and so does the political relationship between Beijing and friendly European leaders.
Thanks to the hard-line positions of Washington and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, which created the possibility of conflict, they last month Warned that China is “coming to us” In the fields of cyberspace, Africa and the Arctic.
Sarah Rehn, a geopolitics and strategy expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said: “Such discussions within NATO may expose very disturbing differences among allies about the extent to which China is actually seen as a threat.”
“The fact is that the hawks believe that some countries have made very pro-China arguments within NATO, at least in terms of being tough but not confrontational.”
Additional reporting by Katrina Manson in Washington
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