A spokesperson for Beijing's mission to the European Union said Nato should do more to contribute to world peace and stability. Photo: AFP
In their July 10 Washington Summit Declaration, the NATO governments issued their most severe criticism of China in the alliance’s history. The 32 heads of state and government denounced Beijing for serving as Moscow’s “decisive enabler” in Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine, thereby elevating the Russian threat to North Atlantic security. NATO objections focused on how China was aiding Russia’s military-industrial complex through transfers of equipment and materials that could boost Russia’s weapons production. The summit communiqué also castigated China’s “malicious cyber and hybrid activities, including disinformation,” along with Beijing’s nuclear weapons buildup, activities in outer space, and “coercive tactics and efforts to divide the Alliance.”
Besides furthering NATO’s increasingly stern tone regarding China’s “systemic challenges” to Western interests, this meeting arguably devoted more attention to Asia-Pacific security issues than any summit in the alliance’s 75-year history. Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who has spent recent years cultivating ties with Asian partners, and other NATO leaders highlighted the many ways in which European, Asian, and North American security are interconnected. That both Korean states have become major weapon suppliers to the combatants in Ukraine underscored this connection.
The intensifying competition for influence in Europe between China and the United States began many years before Russia attacked Ukraine in February 2022. Both the Trump and Biden administrations made it one of their highest foreign policy priorities. For years, China accrued influence in Europe primarily through trade and investment deals, but more recently PRC diplomacy has adopted a higher profile. One of the goals of Xi Jinping’s May 2024 trip to Europe and Beijing’s frequent hosting of European leaders has been to exploit divisions between Europe and the United States, and between European countries themselves, regarding China.
Even so, the wording of the communique underscored U.S. success in persuading European governments to support Washington in curbing China’s access to sensitive Western technologies, denouncing China’s ties with the Russian military, and other priorities. Even Hungary, Turkey, and other European countries whose governments have strived to maintain cordial ties with China signed the communique, which was adopted by consensus. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan observed that, “The declaration demonstrates that NATO allies now collectively understand this challenge and are calling on the PRC to cease this activity.” In his news conference after the NATO Summit, President Biden said that the NATO governments discussed how “to make sure that Xi understands there’s a price to pay for undercutting both the Pacific Basin, as well as Europe, and as relates to Russia and dealing with Ukraine.” Biden expected that “some of our European friends are going to be curtailing their investment” in China to help communicate that message.
The Washington conference further deepened NATO’s ties with the so-called Indo-Pacific Four (IP4) partners of Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea, whose leaders attended their third consecutive alliance summit as privileged non-members. According to Stoltenberg, NATO and IP4 agreed to launch several flagship joint projects regarding cyber defense, military production, Ukraine, countering disinformation, and novel technologies such as artificial intelligence. The four partners also met separately and issued a joint declaration on global security issues, focusing on the threat from growing Russian-DPRK military cooperation.
These meetings will likely continue since they offer the IP4 opportunities to highlight their concerns and influence regarding global security issues. Though working as a group potentially gives them a more elevated profile, the individual members also reached separate agreements with NATO in areas where they could make unique contributions. The alliance agreed to certify ROK aircraft for alliance missions, include Japanese warships in NATO exercises in the North Atlantic region, and signed a new cooperation agreement with New Zealand.
During the summit, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell proposed institutionalizing the partnership further by giving IP4 governments an open invitation to attend all future NATO summits. Some experts have called for creating a new permanent Atlantic-Pacific Partnership Forum, similar to the consultative body NATO has established with other regional partners, to buttress NATO-IP4 cooperation against domestic political changes and other disruptions. Others want NATO and IP4 partners to operationalize their partnership by developing common concepts, capabilities, and standards against Russian and Chinese military threats. Some specifically advocate establishing a formal NATO office in Tokyo or Seoul to advance joint exercises, defense planning, and other security cooperation.
In response to NATO’s statements and actions, PRC Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that alliance should "stay within its bounds" and not extend its activities into Asia or comment on China’s internal affairs. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian stated that the Washington communique was “full of prejudice, smears and provocations” and that NATO “has been spreading disinformation created by the U.S. and blatantly smearing China to undermine China’s relations with Europe and hamper China-Europe cooperation” as well as “justify its existence.” Lin criticized the alliance as “a vestige of the Cold War and a product of bloc confrontation.” The PRC mission to the European Union claimed NATO was becoming a “disrupter of peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific.”
Meanwhile, Chinese media highlighted earlier tensions between NATO and China, such as the alliance’s accidental bombing of the PRC Embassy in Belgrade, while downplaying past cooperation regarding Afghanistan, counter-piracy, and other areas. Chinese military writers denounced the alliance as “essentially a tool to maintain America's hegemony” that “depends on terror, the creation of enemies, and intimidation for its very existence” and now “is racking its brains in instigating confrontation” with China by “push[ing] for NATO's Asian Pacific expansion.”
Russian and Chinese actions have greatly contributed to the NATO activities they oppose. If Russia had not invaded Ukraine, Sweden and Finland would not have joined the alliance and Western governments would not have augmented their military power along Russia’s western frontiers. Rather than address Western concerns about China’s security ties with Russia, PRC policymakers have dismissed how China assists the Russian war machine and continued military exercises with Russia and its allies. China just completed an 11-day exercise with Belarus, despite that country’s military intervention in Ukraine. Shortly after the NATO summit, Russian and Chinese strategic bombers undertook another joint patrol in the Pacific, flying closer to Alaska than ever before. Western democratic solidarity has grown as the space for opposition politics in Russia and China has dwindled. European companies share U.S. perceptions about the decreasing benefits and rising risks of Chinese markets. The Washington communique complained how China still refuses to engage in strategic risk reduction or other transparency measures to lessen anxiety about its nuclear buildup.
Despite Chinese accusations, neither NATO nor its IP4 partners presently plan for countries outside Europe and North America to become alliance members, host alliance forces, or receive NATO defense commitments. European military activities in Asia will remain national initiatives. Influential Western officials and analysts fear overextending the alliance’s capabilities and alienating Asian nations seeking to avoid openly siding against China. Meanwhile, IP4 members have diverging policies regarding China and other issues and therefore prefer the flexibility of the current informal NATO-IP4 format, which lets each Indo-Pacific partner decide in which areas and how deeply to collaborate with NATO. But China’s defense cooperation with Russia and other military activities in the North Atlantic region will invariably spur NATO concerns about China.
