NATO’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has said Saturday China is “watching closely” whether or not Russia succeeds in Ukraine.
Johannes Simon | Stringer | Getty Images News
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Saturday that China is closely watching Russia’s success in Ukraine, with the end result of Europe’s war prone to have wide-reaching implications for Beijing’s behavior in Asia-Pacific.
“Beijing is watching closely what is going on on in Ukraine. And if Putin wins there, after all, that may impact their decisions on the way to behave in Asia,” Stoltenberg told CNBC’s Hadley Gamble.
“What happens in Europe, in Ukraine, matters for Asia, and what happens in Asia matters for Europe,” he said on the Munich Security Conference.
Speaking ahead of the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Stoltenberg said that NATO doesn’t see China as an “imminent” threat.
Nevertheless, he noted that the military coalition is stepping up its cooperation with allies throughout the region, including Japan, South Korea, Australia and Recent Zealand.
“We do not see China as an enemy or any imminent threat. But we assess that the rise of China, China’s growing economic and military power, is a challenge to our security, to our interests, or to our values.”
He added, “Security is just not regional. Security is global.”
Chinese spy balloons ‘a part of a pattern’
The comments come as concerns mount over China’s growing military presence around Taiwan. In addition they follow the invention of a series of Chinese balloons above U.S. airspace, which prompted Washington to accuse Beijing of espionage.
Stoltenberg said that the balloons were a part of a pattern of surveillance tactics employed by China to collect intelligence on NATO allies.
“The fact is, this is a component of a pattern we’ve seen, where China has stepped up their intelligence activities over a few years, using many various platforms comparable to cyber satellites and other kinds of platforms to spy on and to collect intelligence from NATO-allied countries, each in North America, but additionally in Europe,” he added.
