NATO countries are more receptive to US calls to confront China

BUCHAREST (Romania) – For years the United States has been trying to direct its foreign policy towards Asia, to face the possible threat of a more powerful China, and to convince its European allies and NATO to take the challenge more seriously. .

Other crises always got in the way. Gradually, however, Europeans have become aware of the dangers to their own industries, infrastructures and ports, especially after the war in Ukraine so painfully demonstrated the vulnerability its energy dependence on Russia.

With this recent experience in mind, NATO foreign ministers meeting in Bucharest made their most concerted effort yet to address the chinese challengedespite his concern about the Ukrainian war.

Anthony BlinkenThe US secretary of state said Wednesday that NATO had agreed to take more concrete steps to address China’s growing strategic challenge, including trying to coordinate technology export controls and security reviews of Chinese investments.

Secretary General of NATO, Jens StoltenbergHe said the discussions focused particularly on how to reduce “our dependencies on other authoritarian regimes, including China, for our supply chains, technology or infrastructure.”

As we continue to trade and engage with China, he said, “we must be aware of our dependencies, reduce our vulnerability and manage the risks“.

Blinken acknowledged that “the relationship for all of us is complex, as well as incredibly consistent.”

China is the world’s second largest economy and a major trading partner for many of the alliance countries, and in recent years there have been frequent disagreements among them about the level of economic and security threat posed by China and how face it. .

A senior State Department official said the United States hoped to persuade other nations to be more cautious about Chinese investments and operations in infrastructure projects, including ports, and technology-related trade.

But some European and Asian officials and companies disagree with the aggressive US approach to trade, including extensive controls to the export of critical semiconductor technology mandated by the president Joe Biden in October.

There are also tensions with the European Union and Asian allies over the protectionist effect of Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, with its rich subsidies for green technologies, which will be a major problem when the president Emmanuel Macron of France visits Washington for a state visit starting Wednesday.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was founded as a Cold War-era military alliance designed to contain Russian aggression, and key member states with significant trade ties to China, such as Germany and France, are particularly worry that NATO will not deviate from its primary goal. focus on transatlantic security.

They say concerns like climate and trade are best left to other bodies and institutions like the European Union, which is not a military alliance.

Some European officials worry that US security needs in the Indo-Pacific region, including the de facto independent island of Taiwan, which the Communist Party of China claims to govern, will divert the alliance from the Ukraine war and long-standing strategic challenge. end of Russia.

Blinken has tried to address this point directly.

“It’s not about taking NATO into Asia or, in NATO jargon, going outside the area,” he said.

“It’s about some of the challenges China poses to NATO member countries in the area and making sure that, for example, we are building resistance around our infrastructure“.

At its two-day meeting in Bucharest, NATO agreed on an annual report on strategic concerns on China, which is not a public document but helps inform member countries’ investments and ambitions.

The debate on China marked a turn towards a harder line regarding the challenges and threats it represents, especially among foreign ministers from previously more ambivalent countries, such as Italy, Belgium, Spain and Portugal, some of whom have asked for fewer words and more actions build a strategy on China.

Areas of concern included investment screening to protect key industries, infrastructure, cyber, technology and intellectual property, especially as countries feel China’s grip domestically and fear the West stay behind in important areas such as artificial intelligence.

The focus has been on resilience, with some members focusing on maritime security, others on energy security, others on export controls, and still others on cybersecurity and disinformation.

These are debates clearly encouraged by the Biden administration, but now falling on more fertile ground.

At the same time, the nations stressed that there is no intention of viewing China as an adversary, like Russia, nor for NATO to engage militarily in the Indo-Pacific.

They also discussed the challenges we currently face Xi Jinping, The Chinese leader, with widespread protests over “zero-COVID” rules and restrictions, not to mention the threat posed by the blockades to economic growth.

In his final press conference, Stoltenberg said that although NATO is an alliance between Europe and North America, “the challenges we face are global”.

China is not an adversary, he said, and “we will continue to engage with China when it interests us, especially to convey our united position on Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine.”

China is Russia’s most powerful strategic partner and has sided with it in the war.

In his recent meeting with Biden in Bali, Indonesia, Xi showed no inclination to do so distance between him and the president Vladimir Putin of Russia, according to a person familiar with the discussions.

Of America’s NATO allies, Britain has been one of the most outspoken about possible threats from China.

The British government said on Tuesday it would take a 50% stake in a new nuclear power project northeast London, Sizewell C, a move that takes over from China General Nuclear, which held 20%.

The French company EDF has reduced its investment from 80% to 50%.

British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said the debate with China among NATO countries “shows there has been real thinking in the capitals” about the challenge Beijing poses to NATO and the Euro-Atlantic alliance, as well as “what NATO should consider regarding Asia-Pacific”.

He listed issues ranging from China’s crackdown on Hong Kong and Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang to a crackdown on recent protests against COVID restrictions.

He added that “we also need to recognize that on a number of issues,” such as climate change and carbon emissions, “we need to work with China” while “highlighting areas where we fundamentally disagree.”

Last year, at the behest of the Biden administration, NATO made China a priority in its “strategic concept,” but called China a “challenge” rather than a “threat,” a distinction allies have insisted on. such as France and Germany.

However, when leaders like Stoltenberg, Blinken and Cleverly talk about China’s potential, they often refer to threats such as espionage, key infrastructure, access to rare earth minerals, and Beijing’s rapidly growing military and nuclear capabilities.

He cleverly said that “the precise language you want to use is secondary to whether we are highlighting” China’s unacceptable behavior.

In recent months, US officials have quietly lobbied European partners on a variety of China-related trade issues.

The United States has warned Germany not to allow a Chinese state-owned shipping company, Cosco, to take a controlling stake in a Hamburg port terminal.

In 2016, Cosco acquired a 51% stake in the main port of Piraeus, a NATO country in Greece, and began operating it after no other companies submitted competitive offers.

Germany has agreed to limit Cosco’s share in the port of Hamburg to 24.9%.

US officials have fought to get Dutch officials and a major Dutch technology company, ASML, to end sales of a major semiconductor manufacturing tool, deep ultraviolet lithography systems, to China.

At the urging of US officials, the company has already agreed to halt exports of a more advanced lithography system to China.

This diplomacy is also part of the difficult three-way negotiations the Biden administration is conducting with the Netherlands and Japan over the sale of semiconductor manufacturing equipment to China.

c.2022 The New York Times Society