NATO has for the first time singled out China as one of its strategic priorities for the next decade, warning about its growing military ambitions, confrontational rhetoric toward Taiwan and other neighbors, and increasingly close ties to Russia.
In Taipei, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday said it appreciates the alliance’s global vision in facing up squarely to the systemic challenges posed by China.
While Russia’s war against Ukraine has dominated discussions at the NATO summit in Madrid, China on Wednesday earned a place among the Western alliance’s most worrying security concerns.
Photo: Reuters
“China is substantially building up its military forces, including nuclear weapons, bullying its neighbors, threatening Taiwan ... monitoring and controlling its own citizens through advanced technology, and spreading Russian lies and disinformation,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said after presenting NATO’s 10-year Strategic Concept.
“China is not our adversary, but we must be clear-eyed about the serious challenges it represents,” he said.
The strategic document directed its harshest language at Russia, but the mere mention of China was significant; the 2010 document did not discuss China. The official turn by NATO puts the world’s largest military alliance based on the US armed forces on guard against China, which has the world’s second-largest economy and a rapidly growing military, both in numbers and in top-notch technology.
“One of the things that [China is] doing is seeking to undermine the rules-based international order that we adhere to, that we believe in, that we helped build,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said. “And if China’s challenging it in one way or another, we will stand up to that.”
“NATO will step up cooperation with our Indo-Pacific partners, including on cyberdefense, new technologies, maritime security, climate change and countering disinformation,” Stoltenberg said.
“These global challenges demand global solutions,” he said, adding: “We will also do more with our partners.”
China has yet to condemn Russia’s four-month war against Ukraine and has criticized sanctions brought against Moscow by NATO members.
Western leaders are concerned that Russia’s aggression in Ukraine could embolden China to be more assertive over Taiwan.
China has greatly increased its diplomatic reach via foreign investment, especially in central Asia and Africa. Now it is seeking to match that with greater military might, especially in the South China Sea, where it has built bases on disputed islands.
The US Navy has pushed back by conducting drills in those waters.
MOFA said that Taiwan, as a responsible member of the Indo-Pacific region, would continue to bolster its cooperation with democratic allies around the world to fight against the “hybrid threat” posed by authoritarian regimes.
Taiwan will safeguard the peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait and the Indo-Pacific region along with the rules-based world order, ministry deputy spokesman Tsuei Ching-lin (崔靜麟) said.
The ministry also thanked British Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs Liz Truss for voicing support for Taiwan’s safety.
The ministry was referring to remarks by Truss, who yesterday said that the West must learn from its mistakes in failing to deter Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and apply those lessons to Taiwan to “protect peace and stability in the Taiwan strait.”
She avoided questions about whether she was suggesting that Britain should arm Taiwan, saying only: “We also need to make sure that together, the free world are ensuring that Taiwan has the defense capability it needs.”
Additional reporting by Lu Yi-hsuan and Reuters
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
RSS