By Wang Yiwei and Wu Xinze
Before the new century, China had almost no contact with NATO except when the bloc bombed the Chinese embassy in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999, and NATO's strategic focus wasn't in Asia then. But in the new century, with the changes in international environment and China's rapid development and approaching to the center of world stage, it has drawn ever more attention from the US and NATO.
The US-led west is viewing China as a "challenge" and "threat", and NATO naturally has to follow up. It is de facto "bordering" with China with its expansion of "global partners" in Asia. As Chinese investment and technologies are entering Europe and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is expanding worldwide, China becomes a more prominent element in NATO's agenda, well evidenced in the following aspects.
The first is the high-tech field. At the Munich Security Conference (MSC) this year, American Vice President Mike Pence warned its European allies that cooperating with China in building 5G infrastructure will bring security threats. NATO's former Secretary General Rasmussen also said European countries are seeing more clearly the threats that will be imposed by China's engagement in Europe's 5G and other infrastructure construction. It's clear that NATO is noticing the "shocks" brought by China's 5G and other high technologies, and that will be one of NATO's future topics.
The second is the North Pole issue. NATO has expanded its global influence by moving eastward in the first stage and through the "global partner" program now. By forming and developing relations with Japan, ROK, Australia and New Zealand, NATO has planted interests in the Pacific and Indian Ocean region, with the Arctic Ocean region being the next target. It claims that protecting the member states' energy security is its strategic goal, but in fact it has turned the shared development of arctic energy, navigation route and other resources into a geopolitical struggle. Countries both inside and outside of the North Pole region have extensive environmental, scientific research, economic and political interests there, and China has taken an active part in North Pole development cooperation in recent years and proposed to jointly build the "Silk Road on Ice". But this has made NATO alert to China's so-called strategic intentions.
The third is the maritime issue. Just like the polar region, the ocean is also an important area in future human development. Western countries began to pay attention to maritime exploitation and naval construction at an early date, and important maritime areas around the world are basically controlled by them. Today, the fast-rising China increasingly realizes the importance of the sea and has made strategic adjustments accordingly, which has caused panic in the US and NATO. Going forward, maritime issue will be a link of entangled interests between China and NATO.
However, although NATO is paying more attention to China and even hypes up the "China threat theory" like the US, it's not all conflict of interests between them. Despite their differences in ideology, values and strategic goals, it's both possible and realistic for them to cooperate in areas of common concern.
On one hand, they can work together in tackling global non-conventional security threats, such as terrorism, natural disasters, climate change and the spread of massive destructive weapons. As a matter of fact, they have already worked well on the Afghan issue. On the other hand, although NATO came into being against a special historical and ideological background, it can provide experience or lessons learnt for other international bodies in terms of organization, management and transformation, either for the reform of certain international organs or the perfection of others such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
In sum, the unilateralism and "American first" principle upheld by the US has marginalized NATO, which, in face of new development trends in the international community, is seeking a new transformation to legitimize its existence. China is the world's largest developing country, and NATO is a political-military alliance with the strongest military power in the world. They may have conflict of interests and competition on the international stage and NATO in particular may create challenges for China in some of the areas mentioned above.
According to the authors, China and NATO only compete in functional sectors now instead of full-blown hostility. After all, the gap across the Atlantic Ocean is widening, and the US and Europe don't see eye to eye on China. While making full preparations to deal with challenges, China should strengthen the communication with NATO, reduce misunderstanding and misjudgment, enlarge common interests and seek a way of win-win cooperation.
(The authors are a professor and a doctoral candidate in the class of 2017 at the School of International Studies, Renmin University of China, respectively)
