NATO’s steering wheel in the wrong hands of Washington
Editor’s Note:
NATO, which is constantly looking for imaginary enemies and justifying its existence by inciting confrontation, is holding a summit from Tuesday to Thursday, and it also plans to extend its tentacles to the Asia- Pacific region. Behind its aggressive narrative, contradictions and divisions within NATO have become increasingly prominent. The Russia- Ukraine conflict is not going according to NATO’s playbook. This series of articles will provide some clues regarding NATO’s predicament.
In the sixth and last piece, Global Times ( GT) reporter Yan Yuzhu talked to Dr. Jenny Clegg ( Clegg), a UK- based senior lecturer in Asia- Pacific studies, peace and anti- war activist, and author of China’s Global Strategy: Towards a Multipolar World, about Europe’s attitude toward NATO and the problems exposed, what the US has been pushing Europe to do under the NATO framework, and the potential crisis in the Asia- Pacific region.
GT: Initially, the Russia- Ukraine crisis was seen by public opinion as a conflict that would strengthen NATO unity. But as the conflict drags on, differences within NATO have been increasingly exposed. As several European leaders have mentioned “Ukraine fatigue,” there are even voices suggesting that Kiev “will have to make some territorial concessions to Moscow to end the current conflict.” Does this conflict reveal more of NATO’s dilemmas?
Clegg: I think that things are quite up in the air. We’ve seen some major changes and shifting attitudes toward militarization in Europe, weakening or really eradicating some of the pillars for peace that were set in place from the end of
World War II.
For example, we’ve seen big shifts in Germany in agreeing to send arms to conflict areas. We’ve seen the ending of neutrality of Sweden and Finland who both want to join NATO now.
And we can remember that Trump was really disparaging about NATO and demanded the 2 percent of GDP military spending.
But at that time, Europe was quite reluctant to do this. So we’ve seen that barrier being broken down, and Germany committed earlier in the conflict to 100 billion euros in military spending.
We’ve seen quite a shift in Europe, and it remains to be seen how this is going to work out. The Europeans pushed through a raft of measures very rapidly, for example, more or less immediately ending plans for Nord Stream 2.
At the same time, we saw a lot of diplomatic activities, particularly on the part of Macron, who was speaking to Putin, but it’s really Biden and Johnson that have pushed the situation to become a proxy war between NATO and Russia and risk all the time a direct confrontation drawing NATO in. They’ve been pushing countries to commit to the supply of weapons. But in the last few weeks, we’re seeing some divergence over what the “endgame” of this actually is with people like Biden and Johnson insisting on the defeat and weakening of Russia, the overthrow of Putin, with Macron saying, no, we mustn’t humiliate Russia.
We’ve seen Italy putting forward a peace proposal, with a high degree of autonomy for the Donbas region. So I think that this question of the “endgame” is still very much a matter of debate within NATO, with Biden and Johnson pushing for more sanctions and arms, demanding no negotiations with the “butcher of Russia,” and some of the Europeans still looking for another outcome.
GT: After the NATO Summit in 2021, the organization adopted NATO 2030, which explicitly identifies China as a “systemic challenge” to NATO. Since then, how has NATO acted on dealing with China? Does this statement prolong NATO’s life?
Clegg: The US has been pushing NATO toward its so- called free and open Indo- Pacific agenda, and it’s been doing so step by step to persuade the European NATO members to face up to, what they’ve determined is, the “China challenge.”
And we can see that they’ve done so with quite a certain amount of circumspection. For example, first of all, they’ve been pushing on a commitment to freedom of navigation which NATO committed to two or three years ago.
We’ve seen NATO members, as a result, taking part in military exercises with the UK, France and Germany sending warships into the South China Sea. They also pushed for a ban on Huawei, and Europe has been somewhat resistant to this. But I think that they will continue to push their agenda by drawing countries into their proposals on hybrid war, as I’ve suggested. It remains to be seen how the summit shapes up in continuing to shift the perceptions of threat as seen from the European members of NATO.
GT: Many believe that
NATO will replicate the
Ukraine crisis in the Asia
Pacific region and drag
China down, and that the potential “Asian Ukraine” could be Japan, South Korea, or the Taiwan island.
What do you think? Is it likely that the Ukraine crisis will be replicated in the Asia- Pacific?
Clegg: We have a new Prime Minister in Japan who sent offerings to the Yasukuni Shrine. So we have an indication of the kind of persisting attitudes that are amongst the elites in Japan. Again, I think the situation with regard to North Korea is also a worry. After all, despite the drama and fanfare when Trump took a little step over into the border, absolutely nothing has happened, which is extremely frustrating for the North Koreans. Let alone now South Korea has a more hardline government.
I think that most attention has been directed toward the question of Taiwan, and it’s very clear here that the US is coy with the one- China policy so as to aggravate China. China has made clear that it seeks a peaceful reunification with the island, but it has identified three red lines.
First of all, it will take action if Taiwan declares independence; it will take action if negotiations on peaceful reunification are blocked, there’s no way forward; and it will take action if there’s a major incident.
What a major incident would consist of remains to be seen. Clearly, as there are more military activities with the US becoming more militarily involved in Taiwan, there are always the dangers of an accident.
It seems that from recent reports that I’ve heard, that the expectations among some people in Taiwan island that the US would intervene militarily in the case of a conflict with Chinese mainland have completely collapsed following the Ukraine crisis.
In that respect, China can bide its time. But clearly, the US is determined to draw a straight line from Russia to China using the Ukraine crisis as a lever, and claiming to build a new alliance of democracies which will be prepared to take a stand on Taiwan island.
They’ve tried to draw parallels between Ukraine and Taiwan, which are completely different situations, because Ukraine is an independent country, and Taiwan is a part of China. The US in talking about a rules- based world order is really looking for that rules- based order to declare that only democratic entities are legitimate. I think that’s how they’re trying to build the case around Taiwan.