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Send a HeroBox Care Package Today!ANALYSIS – I have argued that one of the biggest collateral benefits of Vladimir Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine has been to unify and strengthen NATO, not only against Russia but also against Putin’s greatest ally, Communist China, led by Xi Jinping.
While individual NATO countries were taking an increasingly hard line against China since President Donald Trump put confronting China front and center in U.S. strategy, Putin’s war (and China’s open support for Russia) pushed NATO to officially place China in its latest ‘Strategic Concept’ planning paper.
This is a significant development. The U.S. can’t face China alone.
It also highlights the direct link more Europeans are seeing between Russia’s assault on Ukraine and a similar Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
In its China Watcher newsletter, Politico, explains what this means and asks whether NATO can face off both threats at the same time. It writes:
Congratulations to President XI JINPING. It’s official. China made it into NATO’s first revamped Strategic Concept in over a decade, formally adopted at last week’s Madrid summit.
NATO pointed to the “systemic challenges” that the People’s Republic of China poses while also holding out an olive branch for “constructive engagement.” Yet the language was tough, referring to Beijing’s “coercive policies” that challenge NATO’s “interests, security and values” as well as the PRC’s “malicious hybrid and cyber operations.”
In the bigger strategic picture, however, it is NATO’s depiction of Beijing and Moscow’s ever closer partnership that raises the largest concerns. NATO is not yet referring to a China-Russia “bloc” in its Strategic Concept, but it is clearly alerting the world’s democracies to the scale of the challenge they now face.
Enter the word “capacity.” Do the U.S. and its allies — especially in Europe — really have the resources and the willpower to hold the line if they are taking on Russia and China at once? The West is now locked in a confrontation over Ukraine that, absent regime change in Moscow, is likely to continue for year after dreary year without a clean and decisive conclusion.
Robin Shepard adds:
NATO firmly rejects the suggestion that China and Russia together are too much to handle. Spokesperson Oana Lungescu told China Watcher: “Both authoritarian regimes are pushing back against the international rules-based order, so we are strengthening NATO in an era of strategic competition and deepening our partnerships with like-minded nations around the world, including our Indo-Pacific partners.… NATO does not have the luxury of choosing our challenges, we must face them all.”
The inclusion of China in NATO’s Strategic Concept has rattled the communists in Beijing, especially as it follows the first NATO summit in June that included Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.
China’s mouthpiece, the Global Times, railed at this Aisa-focused summit, saying: “Catering to NATO’s Asia-Pacificization is tantamount to inviting wolves into the house.… The sewage of the Cold War cannot be allowed to flow into the Pacific Ocean.”
This is all welcome news for the West, but it will take a lot more than just talk and papers.
NATO will have to do much more to rebuild its military capabilities if it truly intends to back the U.S. and its Asian allies in facing the Chinese Red Dragon. ALD
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
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Paul Crespo is the Managing Editor of American Liberty Defense News. As a Marine Corps officer, he led Marines, served aboard ships in the Pacific and jumped from helicopters and airplanes. He was also a military attaché with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) at U.S. embassies worldwide. He later ran for state and federal office, taught political science, wrote for the editorial board of a major newspaper and had his own radio show. A graduate of Georgetown, London and Cambridge universities, he brings decades of experience and insight to the issues that most threaten our American liberty – at home and from abroad. To read more go to: paulcrespo.com.
China gets our oil reserves? Biden owes China? What is it? Hunter? Americans owe China nothing. Last thing we received was poison pet food, leaded paint, fxxxed up drywall, the virus. We should not be supporting them with reserve oil, paid for with their slave labor profits. GUESS BIDEN IS SAYING FXXX NATO
Yes China is getting our Strategic Oil Reserves intended to be saved for times of war and other grave emergencies. I think it holds 700 million barrels, however when Joe took office it was down a bit. I’ve heard 500 million barrels. If he releases (and sells) 1 million a day we could be out in about 18 months – although I believe and hope the present cutoff date is sometime this fall. Couple this with the closing of the pipeline, no new drilling or new pipelines and suddenly we could be out of oil! Aircraft carriers, tanks and fighter jets cannot fly on windmills and solar panels.
The progressive left wing of the democrat party, like AOC and her “squad”, don’t think about necessary things like that. They want to eliminate all petro so they can have our country go green. Maybe she and her gang can fly on the first electric passenger plane. Of course they haven’t figured out what they’re going to use to charge all these battery operated modes of transportation, or how long it will take to recharge those batteries, how and where recharge stations will be placed along the highways. Typical of the left to not worry about the details of their actions.
IT Can IF:
EU forms own Defense Force among members
Form a Pacific Defense alliance to = NATO for Pacific
Rename, rebrand NATO
Use Australia as Hub base & Phillppines
China is building a naval base in Cambodia that will give it fast access to Indonesia and the Indian Ocean – the west coast of Australia. China is also forming a security deal with the Solomon Islands. Guadalcanal is an island there. In 1942 the Japanese were building an airstrip on Guadalcanal so it could control the western Pacific access to eastern Australia. Thanks to the US Marines, Army and Navy it was stopped with bloody battles. It looks like Australia could be getting into this same squeeze if nothing is done to counter it.
Sorry about the duplicate posting re. the SOR. Don’t know how I did that
China is building a naval base in Cambodia that will give it fast access to Indonesia and the Indian Ocean – the west coast of Australia. China is also forming a security deal with the Solomon Islands. Guadalcanal is an island there. In 1942 the Japanese were building an airstrip on Guadalcanal so it could control the western Pacific access to eastern Australia. Thanks to the US Marines, Army and Navy it was stopped with bloody battles. It looks like Australia could be getting into this same squeeze if nothing is done to counter it.
Sorry about the duplicate posting re. the SOR. Don’t know how I did that
Dont forget all the tariffs that Trump imposed on China and BIden wants to remove them. I say we should start making our own stuff. Everything you pick up in a store has made in china. I’m sick of seeing it. Surely we are capable of making our own things. We have made China rich. and powerful. Not to forget I am sure some of our congressmen have become rich working with China.