China says NATO military alliance survived Cold War origins
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NATO military exercises are due to begin near the borders of Russia and Ukraine, while Sweden and Finland are considering joining the Western alliance. Meanwhile, Beijing, which is sympathetic to Moscow, is questioning NATO’s credibility, saying the alliance has survived its original Cold War goal.
At his daily press conference on April 28, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said “NATO has turned Europe upside down.”
The alliance, he says, is a “product of the Cold War” that failed to make “necessary adjustments to the changing times”.
Instead, it became a “tool to seek global hegemony” for “certain countries”, creating “clashes and unrest”, including “meaningless wars and dropping bombs on sovereign states”, while ordering other countries to “conform to basic norms of international relations. »
His outburst came after remarks by British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, who said on Thursday that a victory in Ukraine for Russian President Vladimir Putin would have “terrible consequences across the world”. She went on to say that heavier weapons should be sent to Ukraine despite the risk of escalating the conflict.
“We have to be ready for the long term and double our support for Ukraine.
“Heavy weapons, tanks, planes – dig deep into our inventories, increase production. We have to do all of that.
“Inaction would be the greatest provocation.”
Major deployment of NATO troops
On Friday, the British government said in a press release that NATO would stage “one of the largest deployments since the Cold War”.
“Tens of thousands of troops from NATO and allies and partners in the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF, a UK-led cooperation, with Scandinavian and Baltic states, Iceland and the Netherlands) are involved in the exercises,” the statement said.
The months-long drills in countries from Finland to North Macedonia will involve 8,000 British soldiers as well as French and American soldiers.
NATO enlargement?
Finland, which is considering joining NATO, on Thursday welcomed the alliance’s vow to shield the Nordic country from Russian interference in its potential bid process.
Finland and Sweden, both militarily non-aligned, are debating whether to seek NATO membership as a deterrent against possible Russian aggression following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
But the countries’ leaders have acknowledged that Nordic states could be left open to Russian cyberattacks or territorial violations in the months before a bid is ratified.
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg, speaking to reporters in Brussels on Thursday, said he was “confident that we can find arrangements for this interim period between when Finland and Sweden apply and when ratification form will be finalized”.
(With news agencies)