NATO leaders labeled China a security challenge and agreed that the country is attempting to undermine the global rules-based order in a statement Monday.
The joint statement from the 30 NATO member states argued China is enacting “coercive policies” and called on the nation’s leaders to “uphold its international commitments and to act responsibly,” according to The Associated Press.
BRUSSELS (AP) — NATO leaders say China poses a security challenge, undermines global rules-based order.
— Jonathan Lemire (@JonLemire) June 14, 2021
NATO leaders released the statement Monday during a summit in Brussels, which President Joe Biden attended. (RELATED: Biden To Unveil Trade ‘Strike Force’ Targeting China)
Biden has made competition with China his top foreign policy priority. He has framed the struggle between the U.S. and China as one that will determine whether democracy or autocracy leads the world into the future.
He has ordered several areas of the federal government to restructure with the goal of countering a modern China, including the U.S. military.
Secretary of State Tony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan met with their Chinese counterparts in Anchorage, Alaska, in March for the administration’s first major meeting with China. The pair laid out all of the “deep concerns” that the U.S. has about the communist country, while China countered with dramatic speeches about police brutality in the U.S.
Biden and Blinken have sought to highlight China’s ongoing human rights abuses to galvanize allies and the rest of the international community against the Chinese Communist Party.
“The more China hears not just our opprobrium, but a chorus of opprobrium from around the world, the better the chance that we’ll get some changes,” Blinken testified to Congress in March. “It would be very important if China claims that there is nothing going on that it give access to the international community, to the United Nations. If they have nothing to hide, show it to us. Show the world.”