NATO chief should point accusing finger at transatlantic alliance instead of China

As the world’s largest developing country, China has a global vision and a strong sense of responsibility for global economic development and world peace. China has long advocated cooperation with all countries on the basis of equality and mutual benefit. That explains why China can be a major trade and cooperation partner of countries around the world, be they in Asia, the Americas, Europe, Africa, or the Arctic region.

It also staunchly advocates for dialogue and negotiations to resolve differences and disputes and believes that development is the fundamental remedy for today’s fractious world.

In pursuit of worldwide peace and well-being, it has outlined pathways for the building of a global community with a shared future, putting forward the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative.

Like anything new, its vision has encountered resistance from those who fear they will lose their cheese. The entrenched, reactionary and zero-sum mindset, which regards the “white man’s” loss of privilege and status as “the horror”, was on display again in a panel discussion at the annual gathering of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week. Pointing his warmongering finger at China, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that it was not NATO that was moving into Asia, instead it was China that was moving toward NATO, claiming China’s presence in Africa and the Arctic is a threat to the NATO countries.

It is ridiculous for the hawkish head of the aggressively expansionist transatlantic alliance to describe what China has been doing in Africa and the Arctic as a threat to the NATO countries and part of the country’s efforts to control critical infrastructure.

China has long been a major country that has friendly, cooperative relations with African and Arctic countries. If what China has been doing in Africa can be considered as a threat to NATO, it must be because NATO, whose major members used to be the colonial overlords of African countries, still harbor the intention of controlling and exploiting African countries.

Anyone who has seen with their own eyes what China has been doing in African countries will know it is helping them with their infrastructure, with their healthcare capacities, with their education and with their economic development at large.

Meanwhile, China has long been involved in Arctic affairs. In 1925, China joined the Spitsbergen Treaty and it has continually expanded the scope of its activities since then, prioritizing scientific research, environmental protection and the rational use of resources.

Stoltenberg’s scaremongering flips the truth that it is not China that poses a threat to the NATO members, but NATO, which on its current course, poses a threat to China.

Stoltenberg is no doubt aware that China has never invaded any country, and has not been involved in a military conflict with any country in the past several decades. It has called for dialogues and negotiations with neighboring countries to settle the territorial disputes, and it has reiterated time and again that it does not seek hegemony or to engage in geopolitical rivalry.

NATO should stop being reactionary and change in line with the times.