NATO Leaders Declare China a Global Security Challenge

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(AP) — NATO leaders on Monday declared China a constant security
challenge and said the Chinese are working to undermine global
order, a message in sync with President Joe Biden’s efforts to get
allies to speak out with a more unified voice against China’s
trade, military and human rights practices.

In a summit statement, the leaders said that China’s goals and
“assertive behavior present systemic challenges to the rules-based
international order and to areas relevant to alliance
security.”

While the 30 heads of state and government avoided calling China
a rival, they expressed concern about what they said were its
“coercive policies,” the opaque ways it is modernizing its armed
forces and its use of disinformation.

They called on Beijing to uphold its international commitments
and to act responsibly in the international system.

Biden, who arrived at the summit after three days of consulting
with Group of Seven allies in England, pushed for the G-7
communique there that called out what it said were forced labor
practices and other human rights violations impacting Uyghur
Muslims and other ethnic minorities in the western Xinjiang
province. The president said he was satisfied with the communique,
although differences remain among the allies about how forcefully
to criticize Beijing.

Biden has also used his eight-day trip to Europe to urge allies
to work more closely in pressing Russian President Vladimir Putin
over his government’s treatment of political dissidents and to do
more to stem cyber attacks originating from Russia that have
targeted private companies and governments around the globe.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is an alliance of
European and North American countries formed after World War II as
a bulwark against Russian aggression.

The new Brussels communique states plainly that the NATO nations
“will engage China with a view to defending the security interests
of the alliance.”

But as Biden faced with the G-7 communique, some allies bristled
at the NATO effort to speak out on China.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said NATO’s decision to name
China as a threat “shouldn’t be overstated” because Beijing, like
Russia, is also a partner in some areas. China is Germany’s top
trading partner and is heavily dependent on Russia in fulfilling
the country’s energy needs.

Merkel noted that “when you look at the cyber threats, the
hybrid threats, when you look at the cooperation between Russia and
China, you can’t just ignore China.”

But she added that it was important to “find the right balance”
as China is also a partner on many issues.

“I think it’s very important, just like we do in Russia, to
always make the offer of political discussions, political
discourse, in order to come up with solutions,” Merkel said. “But
where there are threats, and I said they’re in the hybrid field
too, then as NATO you have to be prepared.”

France’s President Emmanuel Macron urged the alliance not to let
China distract it from what he saw as more pressing issues facing
NATO, including the fight against terrorism and security issues
related to Russia.

“I think it is very important not to scatter our efforts and not
to have biases in our relation to China,” Macron said.

The Chinese Embassy to the United Kingdom on Monday issued a
statement saying the G-7 communique “deliberately slandered China
and arbitrarily interfered in China’s internal affairs,” and
exposed the “sinister intentions of a few countries, such as the
United States.” There was no immediate reaction from the Chinese
government to the new NATO statement.

Biden arrived at his first NATO summit as president as leading
members declared it a pivotal moment for an alliance beleaguered
during the presidency of Donald Trump, who questioned the relevance
of the multilateral organization.

Shortly after arriving at the alliance’s headquarters for the
first NATO summit of his presidency, Biden sat down with NATO
Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and underscored the U.S.
commitment to Article 5 of the alliance charter, which spells out
that an attack on one member is an attack on all and is to be met
with a collective response.

“Article 5 we take as a sacred obligation,” Biden said. “I want
NATO to know America is there.”

It was a sharp shift in tone from the past four years, when
Trump called the alliance “obsolete” and complained that it allowed
for “global freeloading” countries to spend less on military
defense at the expense of the U.S.

Biden was greeted by fellow leaders with warmth and even a bit
of relief.

Belgium Prime Minister Alexander de Croo said Biden’s presence
“emphasizes the renewal of the transatlantic partnership.” De Croo
said NATO allies were looking to get beyond four stormy years under
the Trump administration and infighting among member countries.

“I think now we are ready to turn the page,” de Croo said.

Trump routinely berated other NATO countries for not spending
enough on defense and even threatened to pull the U.S. out of the
world’s biggest security organization and even questioned the
mutual defense provision of the NATO charter, a central tenet of
the alliance.

The alliance also updated Article 5 to offer greater clarity on
how the alliance should react to major cyber attacks — a matter of
growing concern amid hacks targeting the U.S. government and
businesses around the globe by Russia-based hackers.

Beyond extending the potential use of the Article 5 mutual
defense clause to space, the leaders also broadened the definition
of what might constitute such an attack in cyberspace, in a warning
to any adversary that might use constant low-level attacks as a
tactic.

The organization declared in 2014 that a cyber attack could be
met by a collective response by all 30 member countries, but on
Monday they said that “the impact of significant malicious
cumulative cyber activities might, in certain circumstances, be
considered as amounting to an armed attack.”

The president started his day meeting with leaders of the Baltic
states on NATO’s eastern flank as well as separate meetings with
leaders of Poland and Romania to discuss the threat posed by Russia
and the recent air piracy in Belarus, according to the White
House.

Biden’s itinerary in Europe has been shaped so that he would
first gather with G-7 leaders and then with NATO allies in Brussels
before his much-anticipated meeting with Putin in Geneva on
Wednesday.

Biden met on Monday evening with Turkey’s president, Erdogan, on
the summit sidelines.

Biden has known Erdogan for years but their relationship has
frequently been contentious. Biden, during his campaign, drew ire
from Turkish officials after he described Erdogan as an “autocrat.”
In April, Biden infuriated Ankara by declaring that the Ottoman-era
mass killing and deportations of Armenians was “genocide” — a term
that U.S. presidents have avoided using.

In a brief exchange with reporters, Biden described it as a
“very good meeting.” He and Erdogan met privately before being
joined by other officials. They spent in total more than an hour
together.