NATO leaders have marked China a “decisive enabler” of Russia’s fighting against Ukraine and called its deepening relations with Moscow a reason for “deep concern”, in what has been noticed as the most serious denunciation against Beijing from the alliance. The final communique, supported by the 32 NATO members at the summit in Washington, also underscores concerns regarding Beijing’s nuclear arsenal and its capabilities in space.
“I think the message transmitted from NATO from this summit is very powerful and very clear, and we are defining China’s responsibility when it comes to helping Russia’s war,” the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg stated, calling the statement an essential message. NATO leaders have suggested China “stop all material and political backing to Russia’s war effort”, adding that Beijing has become a large-scale partner of Russia’s “defence industrial base”.
“This includes the transfer of dual-use materials, such as weapons parts, equipment, and raw materials that function as inputs for Russia’s defence sector,” the declaration stated. Beijing demands that it does not provide direct military support to Russia, but has maintained robust trade ties with its neighbour throughout the dispute. China’s foreign ministry said displeasure at NATO’s growing appeal in Asia and demanded the union stay out of the Asia-Pacific region and not incite conflict. Beijing’s mission to the EU expressed the summit was “filled with cold war mentality and belligerent rhetoric”.
“The China-related paragraphs are stirring with obvious lies and smears,” the mission stated in a statement. China’s foreign ministry representative Lin Jian stated the NATO statement was “malicious” and that China’s function in Ukraine was to “promote peace talks and political settlement”. Last month, China missed a peace summit for Ukraine held in Switzerland, because it did not satisfy Beijing’s expectations, which included the participation of Russia.
The NATO statement came as executives from Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea were set to observe summit talks. It will be the third year in a row that heads from the four Asia-Pacific allies have met at the summit. The final communique also blamed China for being behind supported, malicious cyber and hybrid actions, including disinformation. It also increased alarms that China is rapidly growing and diversifying its nuclear arsenal with more warheads and a bigger number of sophisticated delivery systems.
Danny Russel, the former US assistant secretary of state for Asia, called the new language by Nato “an extraordinary effort”. “It is a mark of how poorly Beijing’s endeavour to straddle Russia and Western Europe has failed and how hollow its declaration of neutrality rings,” stated Russel, who is vice president for international security and diplomacy at the Asia Society Policy Institute. “China’s endeavours at divide-and-conquer have rather produced remarkable solidarity between critical nations of the Euro-Atlantic and the Asia-Pacific regions.”
Chinese troops also have been performing joint military drills in Belarus, to which neighbouring Poland states it is paying close attention. China and Belarus are partners of Russia, while Poland is a NATO member and partner of Kyiv. “The defence ministry is well conscious of the risk of the operations in question being employed for disinformation and propaganda objectives,” Poland’s defence ministry informed Agence France-Presse on Wednesday.
China has earlier held joint drills with Belarus, though these are the first since Russia plagued Ukraine in February 2022. The “Falcon Assault” drills began are assigned to run until mid-July, with China’s defence ministry stating it hoped to deepen cooperation with Minsk.
