China Is A "Decisive Enabler" Of Russia's War In Ukraine: Nato (image@NATO)
The NATO leaders have labelled China as the “decisive enabler” of Russia’s war against Ukraine and called Beijing’s deepening ties with Moscow a cause of “deep concern”. This is seen as the most serious rebuke against Beijing from the alliance. The concerns were raised during NATO summit in Washington.
The NATO leaders have urged China to cease all material and political support to Russia’s war effort. It added that Beijing has become a large-scale supporter of Russia’s “defence industrial base”, including the transfer of dual-use materials, such as weapons components, equipment, and raw materials that serve as inputs for Russia’s defence sector.
China insists about not providing direct military aid to Russia, but has maintained strong trade ties with its neighbour throughout the conflict.
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The country also expressed displeasure at NATO’s growing interest in Asia and demanded the alliance to stay out of the Asia-Pacific region and not incite confrontation.
Beijing’s mission to the EU said the summit was “filled with cold war mentality and belligerent rhetoric”. It said paragraphs related to China provocative with “obvious lies and smears”.
The final communique, which was approved by 32 members of NATO, also accused China of malicious cyber and hybrid activities, including disinformation. It also voiced concern that China is rapidly expanding and diversifying its nuclear arsenal with more warheads and a larger number of sophisticated delivery systems.
The former US assistant secretary of state for Asia, Danny Russel, called the new wording by NATO “an extraordinary step”. He said the latest remarks from NATO mark of how badly Beijing’s attempt to straddle Russia and western has failed “how hollow its claim of neutrality rings”.
This week Chinese troops have been conducting joint military drills in Belarus. The neighbouring Poland said it is paying close attention to the drill, while China and Belarus are allies of Russia, Poland is a NATO member and supporter of Kyiv.
“The defence ministry is well aware of the risk of the operations in question being used for disinformation and propaganda purposes,” Poland’s defence ministry told AFP.
Though China has previously held joint drills with Belarus, this is the first since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. The “Falcon Assault” drills started on Monday and are set to run until mid-July, with China’s defence ministry saying it hoped to deepen cooperation with Minsk.
