China shows muscle on NATO territory

“They stand out from a great distance, can fire at targets from a distance of nine kilometers, and capture terrain and objects of interest to Serbia deep within enemy territory,” Vučicius said, standing next to Serbian soldiers in berets and masks to protect yourself against Covid-19. .

The acquisition of six drones by a NATO partner makes Serbia the first European country to use Chinese combat drones. It also shows that China is expanding its strategic footprint on the threshold of NATO, from cyberattacks and theft of intellectual property to strategic investment through the One Lane, One Way initiative.

China’s action calls on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to target Asia, a potential new threat to the Alliance, which was created to protect Europe from the Soviet Union and later Russia. China’s growing influence in the Balkans reflects its expansion into other areas previously dominated by Russia. The One Band, One Way initiative has already made it a major player in Central Asian politics.

These steps may justify the US position as it strives to persuade allies to engage China with increasingly aggressive forces. However, other NATO members are less concerned and inclined to continue doing business with China, refusing to obey President Donald Trump, who criticizes European allies for insufficient defense spending, having unilaterally withdrawn from the Paris climate accord and end the 2015 crisis. Iran nuclear deal, despite the notable contradictions on the continent.

America’s “top priority” approach, which has diverted traditional American friends, was underscored by the Pentagon’s announcement last week that it intends to withdraw 12,000 troops from Germany and send more than half home from Germany. Europe. Criticizing Germany’s defense spending as inappropriate, Trump said: “We no longer want to be in the fool’s place.”

Signs of NATO’s dilemma vis-à-vis China have been apparent for months. Last year, NATO conducted its first review of China. In December, for the first time, members of the Alliance specifically mentioned China in a statement after the NATO summit.

It is not difficult to understand why China is concerned about NATO leaders. As the One Lane, One Road initiative expands across the continent, China is seizing strategic assets, including ports, energy companies and robotics companies from the Mediterranean to the Baltic Sea. The expansion of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies Co. is also a cause for concern for countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom and France.

Sea routes

And where else is China’s military expansion? Under President Xi Jinping, China 2017 opened its first overseas military base in Djibouti. The base powers it on vital sea lanes near the Horn of Africa, where the United States is also stationed. 2016 and 2017 ordered more than two dozen new ships in October and said in October that it was making “steady progress” on the second carrier after the first launch in 2017.

From a European perspective, perhaps most importantly, China maintains close military ties with Russia, led by Vladimir Putin. It even conducted joint exercises in the Baltic Sea, a region that includes six NATO members.

“China is now at the top of the NATO agenda, which was not the case before,” he said on June 17. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels. – We are not talking about NATO’s move towards the South China Sea, but about the fact that China is getting closer and closer to us. We see the Chinese in the Arctic, we see the Chinese in Africa, we see how much they invest in the infrastructure of our own countries, and of course we see them in cyberspace. “

Despite an unwillingness to resort to Trump’s increasingly confrontational approach to China, NATO members cannot ignore the pressure to pursue America’s shifting priorities.

“The Allies recognize that managing the challenge from China is becoming one of America’s top strategic priorities,” said Alexander Vershbow, a former US ambassador to NATO and the organization’s former assistant secretary general. “While they may not need to contribute their forces, they have yet to show that they recognize the most important challenge to the security of the United States.”

According to Vershbow, if the Allies do not respond to US concerns about China, Europe could “become more vulnerable to Chinese pressure tactics, coercion or misinformation. However, I think the most serious risk is that the United States reduces its contribution to European security. “

Few options

Ignoring anti-China rhetoric can be difficult. Without the support of the United States, NATO allies have little opportunity to demonstrate power in the Asia-Pacific region. However, the United States has its own interests in not abandoning NATO, including pressure on Russian expansionism and, albeit in part, Turkey’s link with the West.

Any new initiative by the Alliance may be more political than military. A common suggestion from outside experts is to establish a NATO Council of China, similar to the current NATO Council of Russia. Others suggest organizing more joint military exercises with partners such as Japan and Australia, and possibly establishing administrative and training facilities in the Pacific.

All 30 members of the alliance view China’s expansion differently. In recent months, the UK and France have been using increasingly harsh rhetoric towards Beijing, while Germany remains open to cooperation. Some southern European countries, such as Greece and Portugal, see Chinese investment as more important than security; Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban thinks similarly. The Baltic countries continue to focus on the Russian threat.

The Beijing approach

These challenges are no secret to Beijing. “From the American point of view, NATO is a strategic tool for the United States,” said Wang Yiwei, a former Chinese diplomat in Brussels and director of the China Institute of International Affairs at Renmin University in Beijing. – However, NATO has 30 members, and it is difficult for them to reach a consensus. Some countries in central and eastern Europe see Russia as the main threat, not China. “

These disagreements could receive more attention if Democrat Joe Biden wins against Trump in the November presidential election. Biden is likely to want to coordinate more closely with NATO allies in the field of security policy.

“If Biden wins, we will receive a sincere request for policy coordination” and “it will be much more difficult for European governments to give up,” said Jonathan Eyal, international director of the Royal United Services Institute in London.

Furthermore, if China’s strategic footprint continues to grow as rapidly as it has in the past decade, European allies will no longer need to persevere in seeking action in the Pacific, all the more so since peripheral NATO states are already getting started. to choose which side to support.

Serbian symbolism

Serbia is a great example. According to President Vučičius, who sold his CH92-A drones to Serbia (price not specified), China also agreed to transfer technology so that the country could develop its own military drones in the future.

It’s a deal full of symbolism, since 1999. NATO’s intervention in Yugoslavia at the time was seen as proof of the relevance of the military in the post-Cold War world.

The intervention, in which US military planes accidentally dropped five controlled bombs on the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, called on Chinese and Serbian politicians to redouble their forces against the rule of the United States and its NATO allies.

In recent months, a poster with anti-NATO slogans and images of Serbian victims of the Kosovo war has hung in a public park between the presidential palace and parliament in Belgrade’s capital, Belgrade, say Majda Ruge and Nicu Popescu of the European Council on Foreign Affairs. It was recently replaced by another that says: “The Chinese and the Serbs are eternal brothers.”

Although Belgrade and Beijing are linked by historical ties, the motivation of A. Vučičius and his party officials to strengthen these relations is coldly calculated. E. wrote in a letter to Mr. Ruge.

“China’s business model impresses political leaders like President Vuichi, who thrive in a system with a weak legal system, no checks and balances, no free media or real competition in the market,” he said. “So we can hope that this relationship continues to flourish politically, militarily, culturally and economically.”

However, the Serbian elite’s desire to work closely with China “could potentially lead us into conflict with the West, which has its own suspicions about China’s goals,” said Igor Novakovich, head of research at the Center for International Affairs and Security in Belgrade.

He notes that “Serbia’s relations with China could become a serious political problem: we are in the deep womb of NATO.”