With a flurry of fist-bumps, NATO leaders concluded their first mid-pandemic summit today by taking a harder line on China than the world’s leading democracies did last weekend at the G7 summit. the ultimate communique from the trans-Atlantic military alliance’s summit in Brussels presented Beijing as a security challenge to western countries because its “cohesive behaviour” set a course for future security partnerships within the Pacific region and beyond. “We have agreed to figure more closely with, as an example , Australia, Japan and Asia-Pacific countries,” said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg following the meeting. “That’s also … the way to answer a more assertive China.”
Stoltenberg and other NATO leaders said that while they need to stay up a dialogue with Beijing, they need watched China’s military modernization concernedly . NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg speaks during a media conference at a NATO summit in Brussels, Monday, June 14, 2021. NATO would really like to draw China into some kind of limitation framework but has received a cold reception from Beijing.
In many respects, the extreme specialise in China at the NATO summit suggests the start of a serious strategic shift. “I think China is, as I even have said repeatedly , a big fact in our lives and new strategic consideration for NATO,” said British Prime Minister Boris Johnson today as leaders received the alliance headquarters, which was ringed with razor wire and security forces. Going into both the NATO summit and therefore the weekend gathering of G7 leaders within the U.K., it had been the stated priority of U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration to urge allies and like-minded nations to specialise in China. U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during a media conference at a NATO summit in Brussels, Monday, June 14, 2021.
For Biden, it had been also a fence-mending exercise after four years of former U.S. president Donald Trump needling NATO members over military spending and questioning the worth of the alliance. “I want to form it clear,” Biden said before a bilateral meeting with Stoltenberg. “NATO is critically important to U.S. interests in of itself. If there weren’t one, we’d need to invent one.” While all 30 members signed off on the communique, some European members are skeptical about NATO’s strategic pivot to confronting China within the face of a belligerent Russia on the alliance’s doorstep. “Russia may be a clear threat is what we also stress here, due to Russia’s aggression,” said Estonian Prime Minister Kajah Kallas, appearing on a panel organized by the Brussels Forum, German Marshall Fund of the us . “They have definitely shown with deeds.” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stands with European Council President Charles Michel (right) and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (left) before attending the EU-Canada Summit Monday Flag Day , 2021 in Brussels, Belgium.
(Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press) Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was on an equivalent panel and suggested the alliance is capable of handling both countries directly . “We can certainly walk and chew gum at an equivalent time,” he said. “We can recognize Russia as a really real and present threat … whilst we recognize the challenges within the Pacific and China.” Unlike many of the opposite leaders, Trudeau didn’t hold a media availability after the summit and continued with a round of bilateral meetings, including one with the president of the ecu Union. Meanwhile, it had been left to Stoltenberg to disappointed two nations wanting to join NATO: Ukraine and Georgia. Both countries are lobbying to urge into the alliance for over a decade.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has been increasingly vocal about NATO putting his country on a path toward full membership. Stoltenberg left the door hospitable membership today, pledging to extend capacity-building training. But Zelensky spread confusion on Twitter by leaving the impression that NATO had green-lit a membership action plan. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the Élysée Palace in Paris. (Thibault Camus/The Associated Press) Biden shot that notion down, saying Ukraine still needs “to pack up on corruption” and meet other criteria required for NATO membership. chatting with Russian state television last week, Russian President Putin issued a harsh warning about the prospect of Ukraine joining NATO and obtaining the cherished security guarantee of Article 5 of the North Atlantic Charter — which states that an attack on one member is an attack on all. ‘Russia … has no say’ Without citing any sources, Putin claimed that quite half Ukraine’s population is against joining NATO.
Ukrainians are, he said, not prepared to ascertain themselves within the crossfire of a possible conflict. “These are smart people,” Putin said. “They understand, they do not want to finish up on the firing line, they do not want to be bargaining chips or fresh fish .” Stoltenberg bristled when asked if Ukraine would ever be ready to join NATO without Russia’s permission. “The message is that it’s for Ukraine and therefore the 30 allies to make a decision when Ukraine can become a NATO member,” he said.
“Russia, of course, has no say because they do not … they can’t veto what neighbours can do.” Also at the summit, the alliance rang down the curtain on its nearly two-decade involvement in Afghanistan, saying it hopes the safety forces in Kabul — most of them trained by NATO members — are going to be ready to hold the country.
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