A spokesman for China’s defense ministry took the gloves off when asked a question about the North Atlantic Treaty Association (NATO) in Beijing Thursday.
“It's fair to say NATO is like a walking war machine, wherever it goes, there will be instability,” said Chinese official Wu Qian of the US-led military alliance.
“We urge NATO to stop making up lies and stop any dangerous move that may disrupt the Asia Pacific, and take an objective and rational view of the growth of China and the Chinese military,” Wu added.
The biting remark came in response to questions about the alliance during a regularly-scheduled press conference. NATO kicked off its Steadfast Defender 2024 exercise Wednesday, bringing together 90,000 groups from member nations to participate in drills over the next half year. The United States has claimed the exercise is the alliance’s largest since the Cold War period.
“As a regional military organization, NATO has launched and fought many wars around the world since its establishment,” said Wu of the alliance, which played a key role in wars on Libya, Afghanistan, and the former Yugoslavia. NATO member countries have also backed intervention in Syria’s ongoing civil war.
“In recent years, NATO has been inching closer to the Asia Pacific and using the non-existent 'China threat' as an excuse to advance bloc confrontation, which poses a threat to regional security,” added Wu.
Japan and South Korea have been attending annual NATO summits since the bloc extended an invitation to them in 2022. The move is seen as a broadening of NATO’s influence to the Asia region, where member countries are anxious over the economic and military rise of China. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has increasingly spoken about “the challenges we [NATO] see coming from China.”
“China doesn’t share our values,” said Stoltenberg in early 2023. “China is also a challenge because we see China is investing heavily in new modern military capabilities, including new long range missiles that can reach all NATO territory.”
A few months later, Stoltenberg threatened China against providing military aid to Russia, warning it would be “a historic mistake with profound implications.” Stoltenberg didn’t elaborate on NATO’s ability or legal authority to dictate China’s policy. Hungarian foreign minister Péter Szijjártó insisted at the time that NATO should not become an “anti-China bloc.”
Wu criticized Stoltenberg at his Thursday press conference, saying the NATO general secretary has made inappropriate comments about China. He also said China is highly concerned about NATO’s massive military drill.
China has been joined by Russia in expressing concern over the planned six-month exercise.
“An exercise of this scale... marks the final and irrevocable return of NATO to the Cold War schemes, when the military planning process, resources and infrastructure are being prepared for confrontation with Russia,” said Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko earlier this week.
“These exercises are another element of the hybrid war unleashed by the West against Russia.”