NATO leaders in a communique on Monday described China as a threat to the “rules-based international order and to areas relevant to alliance security,” marking a major change of focus for the organization.
They said that China “is rapidly expanding its nuclear arsenal,” is “opaque” about its military modernization and is “cooperating militarily with Russia.”
Following the NATO meeting in Brussels, US President Joe Biden assured the alliance that the US would honor its NATO commitments, and said that China and Russia were attempting to drive a wedge between the Washington and European allies.
“I want all Europe to know that the United States is there. NATO is critically important to us,” Biden said.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel also described Beijing as a threat, citing its cooperation with Russia and “cyberthreats” traced to China.
The comments from NATO leaders come only a day after the meeting of G7 leaders in the UK, where G7 members lambasted China for human rights violations in Hong Kong and Xinjiang.
Taiwan’s input must be added to this increasingly united voice of resistance against Chinese expansionism and China’s human rights violations.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance did not want a cold war with China, but Beijing’s response to legitimate concerns of world leaders makes it appear that a cold war is inevitable.
Rather than seeking to communicate productively with world leaders about their concerns, the Chinese Mission to the EU responded aggressively, saying it would “not sit by and do nothing if ‘systemic challenges’ come closer to us.”
Stoltenberg said NATO members “need to address together, as the alliance, the challenges that the rise of China poses to our security.”
Since NATO has described China’s establishment of bases in Africa and its military cooperation with Russia as examples of such challenges, it only seems fitting that its members should seek military cooperation with China’s neighbors, including Taiwan, Japan and South Korea.
Establishing formal relations with Taipei and refusing to acknowledge Beijing’s “one China” policy would send a clear message — that democratic nations do not allow authoritarian states to threaten them or dictate their foreign policies.
A Reuters report on Tuesday suggested that despite their expressed concerns over Chinese activities, NATO leaders remain aware of their countries’ investments in China.
Last year, German trade with China totaled more than US$257 billion, while US trade with China was US$559 billion, the report said. These staggering figures should be a reminder of the need for democracies to reduce economic reliance on China. Trade with China also comes with significant risks, since Beijing often imposes unilateral trade restrictions on a whim, usually for political reasons.
It is clear that Beijing is delusional, calling its growth “peaceful” and dismissing any comments to the contrary as “slanderous.” China sees nothing wrong with forcing millions of its minority citizens into internment camps, arresting people for publicly expressing their views, engaging in cyberattacks against numerous countries, militarizing islands in disputed waters and ceaselessly coercing and threatening Taiwan and its allies.
Greater US participation in NATO, and a shift in NATO’s focus toward China, are encouraging signs. Taiwan should remain vocal about its importance in helping NATO achieve its goals, and should call for inclusion in the organization’s discussions.
Taiwan stands at the epicenter of a seismic shift that will determine the Indo-Pacific’s future security architecture. Whether deterrence prevails or collapses will reverberate far beyond the Taiwan Strait, fundamentally reshaping global power dynamics. The stakes could not be higher. Today, Taipei confronts an unprecedented convergence of threats from an increasingly muscular China that has intensified its multidimensional pressure campaign. Beijing’s strategy is comprehensive: military intimidation, diplomatic isolation, economic coercion, and sophisticated influence operations designed to fracture Taiwan’s democratic society from within. This challenge is magnified by Taiwan’s internal political divisions, which extend to fundamental questions about the island’s identity and future
The narrative surrounding Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attendance at last week’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit — where he held hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin and chatted amiably with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — was widely framed as a signal of Modi distancing himself from the US and edging closer to regional autocrats. It was depicted as Modi reacting to the levying of high US tariffs, burying the hatchet over border disputes with China, and heralding less engagement with the Quadrilateral Security dialogue (Quad) composed of the US, India, Japan and Australia. With Modi in China for the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has postponed its chairperson candidate registration for two weeks, and so far, nine people have announced their intention to run for chairperson, the most on record, with more expected to announce their campaign in the final days. On the evening of Aug. 23, shortly after seven KMT lawmakers survived recall votes, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) announced he would step down and urged Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) to step in and lead the party back to power. Lu immediately ruled herself out the following day, leaving the subject in question. In the days that followed, several
The Jamestown Foundation last week published an article exposing Beijing’s oil rigs and other potential dual-use platforms in waters near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙島). China’s activities there resembled what they did in the East China Sea, inside the exclusive economic zones of Japan and South Korea, as well as with other South China Sea claimants. However, the most surprising element of the report was that the authors’ government contacts and Jamestown’s own evinced little awareness of China’s activities. That Beijing’s testing of Taiwanese (and its allies) situational awareness seemingly went unnoticed strongly suggests the need for more intelligence. Taiwan’s naval
RSS