China has been labeled a threat by NATO, which described its policies as a “challenge” to the alliance’s interests, security, and values, as Australia said the communist nation was economically coercing it.
On Wednesday, the 30-strong security organization approved a new
blueprint for the next decade, condemning China for the first time in its more than 70-year history.
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Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told NATO leaders that China aspired to become the “most powerful nation in the world” and that strengthening relations between Beijing and Moscow posed a risk to all democratic nations.
“Just as Russia is trying to recreate a Russian or Soviet empire, the Chinese government is seeking friends, whether it be … through economic support to build alliances for what historically was the Western alliance in places like the Indo -Pacific, to undermine,” Mr. Albanese told the NATO meeting in Madrid.
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Mr. Albanian said Australia had been subjected to “economic coercion” by China and has urged democratic leaders to pursue trade diversification. NATO, which includes the US, UK, Canada, and most of Europe, warned that the Chinese government is “rapidly expanding” its nuclear capability without increasing transparency or acting in good faith on arms control.
“The People’s Republic of China” [People’s Republic of China] malicious hybrid and cyber operations and its confrontational rhetoric and disinformation target allies and damage the security of the alliance,” NATO said in its first planning document in a decade.
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Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said NATO should stop “trying to launch a new Cold War”.
Emmanuel Macron receives Anthony Albanian for talks.
An official said that Anthony Albanese and French President Emmanuel Macron will hold talks in Paris this week to repair ties badly damaged by the loss of a submarine contract. Macron will receive Albanian at the Elysee Palace on Friday morning, a French presidential official, who declined to be named, told AFP on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Madrid. The talks at the Elysee will be the first such formal bilateral summit between Australian and French leaders since former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison in September 2021 tore up a French contract to build a dozen diesel-powered submarines.
The abolition of the contract sparked an unprecedented crisis between Canberra and Paris and such bad blood that outgoing Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian applauded Morrison’s loss in polls to the Albanian, who he said was “well with me.” suits”.
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Morrison’s actions were marked by “cruelty and cynicism, and I would even be tempted to say unequivocal incompetence,” Le Drian said when he handed over the reins to his successor Catherine Colonna on May 21. the United States Macron recalled his envoys to Australia and the United States because of the furor.
France was particularly confused as it considered itself a major power in the Pacific thanks to overseas territories, including New Caledonia and French Polynesia.
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It was also stinging when Macron received Morrison at the Elysee in June 2021, months before the stunning turnaround. French officials said they had no idea what was to come, even privately.
Albanian announced earlier this month that French submarine maker Naval Group had agreed to a “fair and equitable settlement” of €555 million ($584 million) for Australia, ending a decade-old multi-billion dollar submarine contract.
