Focused on Ukraine, NATO leaders strike a nerve in China

China came under direct NATO criticism for the first time this week as a result of its support to Russia’s war in Ukraine and other policies, including its nuclear expansion and continuing cyberattacks.

Beijing angrily rejected the criticism on Thursday, calling the provisions in the official NATO summit communique on China “scaremongering” and insisting that claims of Chinese backing for Russia are U.S.-generated disinformation.

The communique agreed to by the leaders of NATO’s 32 member nations for the first time said China has become a “decisive enabler” of the Russian military operation in Ukraine as a result of the “no limits” deal between Beijing and Moscow struck just before the Ukraine invasion in early 2022. The alliance in the past had been more divided on China, with some members regarding it as a threat and others viewing Beijing as a remote challenge and even an economic opportunity.

The clash with China came as the three-day NATO summit wrapped up in Washington, a summit that was at once intensely focused on the Ukrainian crisis — a new Biden administration pledge of $225 million in military aid was just one of several pledges Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy collected during his Washington visit — and distracted by the questions surrounding President Biden’s health and political future and the sweeping changes a potential Donald Trump administration might bring for the alliance in just a few months.

The summit declaration on China warned that Beijing’s growing support for Russia will come at a cost. It also elicited a quick and angry response from Beijing, which issued its own warning to NATO not to try to bring its alliance-building “chaos” into China’s backyard in the Indo-Pacific region.

In Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian issued unusually harsh rhetoric criticizing the NATO statement.

“NATO’s Washington summit declaration is a scaremongering piece about the Asia-Pacific, a product of the Cold War mentality and full of belligerent rhetoric,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian told a press briefing in Beijing Thursday. The section on China contained “a load of biases, smears and provocations.

Mr. Lin said the Chinese government issued a formal protest on the statement, he said.

Negative impact

The NATO statement pulled no punches: China “cannot enable the largest war in Europe in recent history without this negatively impacting its interests and reputation,” the declaration said, particularly calling out “its large-scale support for Russia’s defense industrial base.”

“We call on the [People’s Republic of China], as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council with a particular responsibility to uphold the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, to cease all material and political support to Russia’s war effort,” the statement said. “This includes the transfer of dual-use materials, such as weapons components, equipment, and raw materials that serve as inputs for Russia’s defense sector.”

Additionally, the alliance stated clearly for the first time that China’s threat is not limited to the Asia Pacific but also affects European security. Beijing “continues to pose systemic challenges to Euro-Atlantic security,” the statement said.

“We have seen sustained malicious cyber and hybrid activities, including disinformation, stemming from the PRC,” the statement said.

NATO called on China to act responsibly in cyber space and voiced concerns about Chinese space warfare capabilities and activities.

China’s military has developed and deployed several types of space weapons, including anti-satellite missiles, electronic jammers, satellites with robotic arms that can grab and crush orbiting satellites and robust cyber capabilities for disrupting and destroying satellites.

“We call on the PRC to support international efforts to promote responsible space behavior,” the statement said.

Beijing’s rapidly expanding nuclear arsenal also drew criticism in the alliance statement that noted the deployment of new and different types of warheads and missile delivery systems.

“We urge the PRC to engage in strategic risk reduction discussions and promote stability through transparency,” the statement said.

“We remain open to constructive engagement with the PRC, including to build reciprocal transparency with the view of safeguarding the alliance’s security interests.”

In response to China’s information operations, NATO is increasing its intelligence, resilience and preparedness that will seek to protect NATO members from “PRC’s coercive tactics and efforts to divide the alliance.”

Even before the summit, outgoing NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said last month that China should be punished for its support for Russia. While China says it has observed international sanctions against supplying military arms and ammunition to Russia, Moscow bought 90% of its microelectronics used in missiles, tanks and aircraft from Beijing, he said. An estimated 70% of Russia’s machine tools, equipment that is used by the military also is imported from China.

China also is helping Russia improve its satellite imaging, Mr. Stoltenberg said.

Echoing Russian criticism of the alliance, Mr. Lin said NATO is a leftover from the Cold War and a source of “bloc confrontation.” He added that NATO poses an “enormous danger to the world.”

Mr. Lin said NATO has spread U.S.-origin disinformation regarding Chinese backing for the Russian military.

Also, NATO’s growing ties to Asia — leaders from Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand took part in the summit — harm China’s interests, Mr. Lin said.

Miles Yu, a former State Department policymaker, said the communique language on China marks a significant shift for the European alliance in recognizing Beijing’s and Moscow’s dual threats.

The China-Russia axis posed the greatest global threat to freedom and democracy, said Mr. Yu, now with the Hudson Institute, who added it was time for NATO and America’s Asian allies to come together in a new counter-alliance spanning both theaters.

“The time has come to give new strength and purpose to old alliances and to build new ones to meet today’s challenges,” Mr. Yu said.

Russia, predictably, had its own problems with the tone and substance of the NATO gathering, criticizing in particular Mr. Stoltenberg’s pledge that eventual Ukrainian NATO membership is “irreversible” and the clear signs by NATO nations they were more open to Kyiv using their weaponry to strike deeper into Russia itself, something many had been reluctant to endorse before.

“Since Russia opened a new front … the only way to hit military targets, military launchers or airfields that attack Ukraine is to hit military targets in Russian territory,” Mr. Stoltenberg said Thursday.

Dmitry Medvedev, one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most hawkish advisers, said in Moscow Thursday that, if Ukraine is on an “irreversible” path to NATO membership, Russia should do everything to “make this irreversible path of Ukraine to NATO lead to the disappearance of either Ukraine or NATO, or better both.”

• David R. Sands contributed to this article, which is based in part on wire service reports.