At the Madrid Summit, leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), on Wednesday, 29 June, agreed for the first time that China poses a threat to the "rules-based international order."
The blueprint of the alliance, known as a 'strategic concept,' reads, "The PRC’s [People’s Republic of China] malicious hybrid and cyber operations and its confrontational rhetoric and disinformation target allies and harm alliance security."
It goes on to add that Beijing's close relations with Moscow "subvert the rules-based international order, including in the space, cyber and maritime domains."
In response, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said that NATO should stop "trying to launch a new cold war."
"Stop trying to mess up Asia and the world after messing up Europe. What they should do is give up their cold war mindset, zero-sum games and stop doing things that create enemies."
Negative Views of China Remain 'At or Near Historic Highs': Pew
The NATO blueprint comes around the same time as a report published by the Pew Research Centre, which concluded that "negative views of China remain at or near historic highs" in most of the 19 countries that were surveyed for the research.
According to that report,"across the nations surveyed, a median of 79% consider these policies [on human rights] a serious problem, and 47% say they are a very serious problem."
Biden to Deploy US Troops Across Europe
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden announced on Wednesday that the US will bump up its military forces across Europe in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
"The US and its allies are going to step up. We’re stepping up. We're proving that Nato is more needed now than it ever has been," the president said in a short statement before his first meeting at the NATO summit in Madrid.
American troops will be deployed on land, sea and air, in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Biden announced, according to The Guardian, a stationing of a brigade of 3,000 combat troops in Romania, two squadrons of F-35 fighters in Britain and two navy destroyers in Spain.
(With inputs from Reuters and The Guardian.)
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