NATO: China's Role In Ukraine War A 'Challenge' To The Alliance

NATO Says China's Role In Ukraine War A "Challenge" To The Alliance

Kyle Anzalone & Connor Freeman

During remarks on Wednesday, the civilian head of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) slammed China as a "challenge" to the alliance. In an interview with Reuters, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Beijing’s support for the war in Ukraine, its opposition to NATO expansion, and its territorial claims justify the alliance assigning China this label. 

Largely in response to Washington’s increasing hostility, Moscow and Beijing have strengthened their ties for well over a decade. Prior to the invasion of Ukraine, China and Russia carried out several rounds of military exercises. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping have met several times since the war began, reaffirming the two Asian powers’ growing ties. 

While Beijing has not given public support to Moscow’s war, China has refused several demands to condemn Russia’s invasion. Beijing has drastically increased its economic ties with Moscow as Russia has become more isolated from Western markets. 

Meanwhile, India and Turkey have followed Beijing in importing more Russian goods. Ankara is a NATO member state. The US and several other NATO members recently engaged in war games with India.

Stoltenberg also took issue with Beijing over its opposition to NATO expansion. At the fall of the USSR in 1990, the North Atlantic alliance only had 16 members. In the 30 years since, NATO has added 14, soon to be 16, new members. Many of the new additions to the alliance are former Warsaw Pact or USSR states. Moscow has long protested NATO expansion. In 2008, the US Ambassador to Russia said expanding the alliance to Ukraine and Georgia violated all of Russia’s red lines. NATO has also expanded its global reach. 

This week, NATO members, the US and Canada, conducted a joint transit through the Taiwan Strait. Last year – eyeing Beijing and following Washinton’s imperial lead, with British, French and German warships sailing the South China Sea.

This year, NATO targeted China in its new Strategic Concept document. UK Prime Minister Liz Truss has even openly called for a “global NATO”  to defend Taiwan and confront China in the Asia Pacific. Under Truss, Beijing will be classified as a “threat” to England’s “national security for the first time… for a tougher approach to Beijing,” the Times reported last month. In his first Congressional address, Biden boasted he “told President Xi that we will maintain a strong military presence in the Indo-Pacific just as we do with NATO in Europe…”