NATO SG calls for stronger policy against China

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NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg called on the alliance countries' leaders to develop a stronger common policy against what he called "China's increasing dominance."

In an interview with the CBC ahead of the summit scheduled for today in Brussels, Stoltenberg said that China has the world's second-largest defense budget and the world's largest navy and tremendously invests in modern military equipment, which "affects the security of the Atlantic."

"China does not share our values," he told CBC, "We see that in the way they crackdown on democratic protests in Hong Kong, how they oppress minorities like the Uyghurs and also how they use modern technology, social media [and] facial recognition, to monitor, to do surveillance of their own population in a way we have never seen before," he added.

He continued, "All of this makes it important for NATO to develop a policy, to strengthen our policy when it comes to China."

In his interview, he acknowledged that it is important for other countries to engage with China on common problems such as climate change and arms control.

But he condemned Beijing's continued detention of Canadian citizens Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor on espionage charges, describing the matter as 'absolutely unacceptable'.

He also added that "there is no secret that we had some challenging discussions among NATO allies during the Trump administration," stressing that the alliance was still "very strong." He continued, "What I welcome is that we now have a U.S. president, President Biden, who is strongly committed to NATO, to European security, and who is ready to invest more in NATO."

For its part, China warned Sunday the leaders of the G7 nations that "the days of a small group dictating global decisions are gone."

China's statements came after the leaders of the G7 countries announced that they had reached a consensus on the need to take a joint approach towards China's sale of its exports at low prices and its "violation of human rights."

Biden had arrived Sunday evening to Brussels to participate in the NATO summit today, meeting with the heads of the European Union institutions on Tuesday, before meeting his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Geneva next Wednesday.