Russia apart, NATO finally wakes up to China 

China on Thursday, 30 June 2022, denigrated NATO’s strategic concept published at a summit in Madrid in June 2022, that called Beijing’s stated ambitions and coercive policies a challenge to the alliance’s interests, security and values.  

China excoriated NATO’s strategic concept, terming it as a ‘malicious attack’ and ‘Cold War thinking’. “NATO’s so-called new strategic concept document disregards facts, confuses black and white… (and) is maliciously attacking and smearing China,” foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a regular briefing last month (June 2022). 

He added that China ‘firmly opposes it’. “When it comes to acts that undermine China’s interests, we will make firm and strong responses. 

“Who’s challenging global security and undermining world peace? Are there any wars or conflicts over the years where NATO is not involved? 

“We would like to warn NATO that hyping up the so-called China threat is completely futile,” Zhao told reporters. 

A statement released by China’s Mission to the European Union, on 30 June 2022, also condemned NATO’s concept. “Since NATO positions China as a `systemic challenge,’ we have to pay close attention and respond in a coordinated way. When it comes to acts that undermine China’s interests, we will make firm and strong responses,” the statement said. 

The 30-member alliance, that comprises NATO, published a new 10-year strategic blueprint, agreed to by leaders on Thursday, 30 June 2022, that, for the first time in its history, held the East Asian superpower culpable for conducting “malicious” cyber operations, for its strategic partnership with Russia, rapidly expanding nuclear arsenal and its efforts to dominate key supply chains. 

The new planning document set the stage for the allies to plan to handle Beijing’s transformation from a benign trading partner to a fast-growing competitor on issues from the Arctic to cyberspace, and recommitted the alliance to collective defence “against all threats from all directions.” 

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said at the Madrid summit that “China is not an adversary but, of course, we need to take into account the consequences to our security when we see China investing heavily in new modern military capabilities, long-range missiles, nuclear weapons, and also trying to control critical infrastructure, for instance, 5G networks in our own countries.” 

NATO has for long been in denial about China while focusing on Russia as an immediate threat. However, that line is now changing. Stoltenberg recently called on the alliance to stand up to Beijing’s ‘bullying and coercion”. Indeed, while NATO sees Russia as a threat to its border states in Europe, it can no longer be oblivious of the immense security challenges that China poses to non-member allies in the Indo-Pacific. 

From India to Taiwan to Japan, China’s belligerent postures are becoming an increasingly nerve-wracking quandary to its neighbours. In June 2022, Chinese warships entered Japanese territorial waters in the East China Sea and stayed to keep watch over a nearby Japanese fishing boat for almost 3 days, close to the disputed Senkaku Islands, now under the control of Japan. 

China not only disputes the Senkaku Islands (or Diaoyu Islands as they are called in China) with Japan, but also the Ryukyu Islands in the East China Sea.  

Last month (June 2022), Taiwan said that 29 Chinese warplanes invaded its air defence zone, the third-largest invasion this year. Taiwan is relentlessly menaced by China, which regards the self-governed, democratic island as part of its sovereign territory and has sworn to merge it with the mainland, by force if necessary.  

According to Taipei, 29 Chinese aircraft, including 17 fighter jets and six bombers, flew into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ). In 2021, Taiwan logged 969 incursions into its ADIZ by Chinese jets, more than double the 380 sorties conducted in 2020. So far this year, the figure has surpassed 500. 

As for India, China has rapidly built military infrastructure along its border with its South Asian neighbour, escalating tensions in the region. The infrastructure build-up by the Chinese is not only aimed at the quick deployment of forces but also to sustain them for a relatively longer period of time.  

Today, China continues to occupy vast swathes of Indian territory in eastern Ladakh. Ladakh is India’s northern-most territory. The PLA has taken possession of Patrolling Point (PP) 15 in Hot Springs and PP17A near Gogra post in Ladakh, which are claimed by India. And has amassed additional troops across the border, armed with artillery, air defences, combat drones and heavy vehicles.  

China’s territorial excessiveness and aggression is also exhibited by its opening up additional fronts along the border with India’s states of Uttarakhand, Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim. China claims 83,743 square km of the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh that borders the Line of Actual Control across from the Tibet Autonomous Region. Since China annexed Tibet in 1950, it has laid stakes on Arunachal Pradesh, calling it ‘southern Tibet’ and hence, its territory. 

China has been very territorial in its land and maritime disputes with its neighbours, nothing short of predatory. In fact, China has a list of maritime disputes with a host of its East Asian and South-east Asian neighbours.  

With the Philippines, China disputes the Scarborough Reef and the Spratly Islands. Even as China offered to negotiate, the Philippines declared these territories as non-negotiable. With Indonesia, there is a dispute over the Natuna Islands and other parts of the South China Sea. With Malaysia, it is over the Spratly Islands. With South Korea, it is over the Socotra Rock (Ieodo or Suyan Rock) in the East China Sea. With Brunei, it is over some parts of the Spratly Islands. With Singapore, it is over some parts of the South China Sea. With Vietnam, it is over the Spratly and Paracel Islands. And with Taiwan, over the Macclesfield Bank, Paracel Islands, Scarborough Shoal, parts of the South China Sea and the Spratly Islands.    

The Spratly Islands and the Paracel Islands (or Xisha Islands) are the two primary contentions in the sea. The first is a dispute between China, Taiwan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Brunei, while the second is between China, Taiwan and Vietnam.  

China has, over the past decades, displayed exceptionable conduct by continued and relentless military aerial sorties over disputed areas, its naval war ships trespassing these areas, and in its exercising fishing rights over troubled waters. It has also prevented mining and fishing activities by countries like Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam in contested waters. 

In March 2022, US Indo-Pacific commander Admiral John C Aquilino voiced concern that China has fully militarised at least three of several islands it built in the disputed South China Sea, arming them with anti-ship and anti-aircraft missile systems, laser and jamming equipment and fighter jets in an increasingly aggressive move that threatens all nations operating nearby. 

“Over the past 20 years we’ve witnessed the largest military build-up since World War Two by the PRC,” Aquilino told the Associated Press in an interview. “They have advanced all their capabilities, and that build-up of weaponisation is destabilising to the region.” 

China has maintained that its actions are purely defensive, aimed at protecting its sovereign rights to its own territory. China has been building military bases on artificial islands in a region also claimed by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam. China, in fact, claims 90% of the South China Sea as territory that historically belongs to it. 

On 12 July 2016, The Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague dismissed Beijing’s claim to much of the South China Sea. It stated that there was no evidence that China had exercised exclusive control, historically, over the key waterway.   

On 23 October 2021, China’s National People’s Congress approved a new border law asserting that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of China are “sacred and inviolable”. The new border law which became operational from 1 January 2022, stipulates that “the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the People’s Republic of China are sacred and inviolable”. 

This kind of adumbration is intimidating for China’s lesser neighbours. And the US has been eager to contain China’s onslaught in the Indo-Pacific by forging new alliances. For Japan and South Korea, nuclear deterrence has become a bigger consideration in recent months in the wake of the US-China rivalry, China’s growing militarisation in the region, and the threat of a bellicose nuclear-equipped North Korea.  

Days after Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, former (and now deceased) Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called on his country to consider hosting US nuclear weapons, saying the topic should be discussed without “taboo”. New advances in Beijing’s hypersonic technology are also becoming a significant concern for Tokyo. Presently, Japan is seeking to increase its investment in hypersonic technology development. 

While China’s military threat in the Indo-Pacific seems far away from NATO’s frontiers, cyber-espionage, intellectual property theft, infiltration of critical infrastructure, debt manipulation, and disinformation conducted by the Chinese government are rife within the borders of the 30-member alliance.  

On Wednesday, 6 July 2022, speaking at the M15’s London headquarters, US FBI Director Christopher Wray expressed concerns over China’s persistent and clandestine economic espionage and hacking operations as well as the Chinese government’s efforts to suppress dissent abroad. 

“We consistently see that it’s the Chinese government that poses the biggest long-term threat to our economic and national security, and by ‘our,’ I mean both of our nations (the US and the UK), along with our allies in Europe and elsewhere,” Wray said. 

Wray’s remarks only displayed the FBI’s wariness of the Chinese government as not only a law enforcement and intelligence challenge, but also its foreign policy actions and their implications. 

It is keeping all this in mind that the world should welcome the fact that NATO has finally woken up to China’s overt and covert attempts at undermining and destabilising the rest of the world to its own advantage. And it is exigent that NATO discards forbearance, and becomes ever-vigilant hence.