Finance
According to media reports, NATO, the world’s most powerful military alliance, has declared China a security threat for the first time, warning that Beijing’s ambitions and coercive behavior pose a major challenge to the group’s interests, putting its forces on a potential war footing with Russia.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, NATO’s new 10-year strategic blueprint, agreed to by leaders at a summit in Spain on Thursday morning (AEST), called out the rising Asian power for conducting “malicious” cyber operations, for its strategic partnership with Russia, rapidly expanding nuclear arsenal, and efforts to dominate key supply chains.
In response to being labeled a threat, China called the Western alliance a “Cold War relic” and a source of instability that is “smearing” Beijing’s international reputation.
Australia Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, speaking as part of the ‘Asia Pacific 4′ group of guests at the summit, stated that the Western world needs to reassert democratic values.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, he dismissed China’s criticism of NATO and declared the summit “extremely successful.”
“What we’ve seen is the world come together in rejecting the Russian aggression on Ukraine, and also having a reassertion of our shared values of having a rules-based international order,” Albanese said before leaving for Paris.
“We need to reassert our democratic values and that is something that has occurred at this NATO summit.”
The 30-member alliance agreed to formally designate Russia as the “most significant and direct threat to the security of the allies,” condemning its “brutal and unlawful invasion” of Ukraine as having “significantly altered” Europe’s security environment.
Source:OCN
