China hawks in the United States shouldn’t believe they “have the luxury” of shifting attention from Russia to the rising communist regime, according to NATO’s top civilian.
“China and Russia are more and more aligned,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Wednesday at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. “The idea that we can just address the Russia [threat] without at the same time addressing China, or vice versa, is meaningless.”
Stoltenberg offered that warning amid a wide-ranging discussion of the relationship between NATO and U.S. foreign policy interests in the 75th year of the trans-Atlantic alliance. It amounted to a frank rebuff of a sentiment that the conservative think-tank’s president had aired just moments before the NATO chief’s remarks.
“And while at Heritage, we do recognize Russia as a major adversary and national security threat, by far the greatest threat to post World War Two America, even more so than the Soviet Union ever was, is the Chinese Communist Party,” Kevin Roberts said in a prefatory appearance. “The United States must balance these threats and does not have the luxury of ignoring the Pacific, let alone the Middle East, to focus exclusively on the Atlantic.”
China has emerged as a priority of discussion for NATO since 2019, when then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo barnstormed Europe on a diplomatic tour to discourage the allies from allowing Huawei to build their next-generation telecommunications infrastructure.
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By the end of that year, NATO made a statement on the “opportunities and challenges” posed by China. In 2022, the leaders of Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, and Australia attended the NATO summit for the first time — and they will make it three in a row when the alliance heads gather in Washington in July.
“If we cannot stop Russia’s cycle of aggression in Europe, others will learn the lesson that using force against America’s interests works,” Stoltenberg said during his prepared remarks. “The price for our security will go up. China is watching closely. And supporting Putin. Let’s remember, China and Russia are partners.”
