 Russia poses a 'direct threat' to NATO security: Stoltenberg Madrid (AFP) June 29, 2022 - NATO leaders meeting in Madrid Wednesday are set to label Russia a menace to their security as they overhaul the alliance's defences in response to the war on Ukraine, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said. "We'll state clearly that Russia poses a direct threat to our security," Stoltenberg said ahead of the unveiling of NATO's new strategic blueprint. Stoltenberg said the meeting in Madrid was set to be "historic and transformative" for the seven-decade-old alliance as it grapples with the fallout from Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. "We meet in the midst of the most serious security crisis we have faced since the Second World War," Stoltenberg said. NATO is due to launch the largest revamp of its defence and deterrence capabilities since the end of the Cold War by strengthening the forces on its eastern flank and massively ramping up the number of troops it has at high readiness. It is also set for the first time to turn its attention to the challenge posed by the rising might of China in an update to its guiding "strategic concept". "China's not an adversary," Stoltenberg said. "But of course, we need to take into account the consequences to our security when we see China investing heavily in new modern military capabilities, long range missiles or nuclear weapons and also trying to control critical infrastructure for instance, 5G." In a sign of this shift the leaders of partners South Korea and Japan will attend a NATO summit for the first time.
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Moscow said Wednesday that the NATO summit in Madrid served as proof the alliance was seeking to contain Russia and that it saw Finland and Sweden's NATO bids as a "destabilising" factor.
"The summit in Madrid confirms and consolidates this bloc's policy of aggressive containment of Russia," Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said, Russian news agencies reported.
"We consider the expansion of the North Atlantic alliance to be a purely destabilising factor in international affairs."
NATO leaders were set Wednesday to invite Finland and Sweden to join after Turkey dropped objections, as the alliance looked to revamp its defences at a summit dominated by Moscow's intervention in Ukraine.
More than four months after Russia sent troops to Ukraine, upending the European security landscape, leaders gather in Madrid for what NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg called a "historic and transformative summit" for the alliance's future.
Ryabkov said Russia knew what to expect from the summit.
"A new strategic concept will be adopted, where Russia is going to be called a threat to the alliance," he said.
"This has nothing to do with real life. It is the alliance that poses a threat to us."
Beijing slams NATO over 'completely futile' China warning
Beijing (AFP) June 30, 2022 -
Beijing on Thursday slammed NATO over a "completely futile" warning in which the group said for the first time in a guiding blueprint that China's power challenges the military alliance.
The response came after NATO's strategic concept, published at a summit in Madrid, said Beijing's stated ambitions and coercive policies challenged its interests, security and values.
NATO also said that China's closer ties to Russia went against Western interests, drawing a fiery response from Beijing.
"NATO's so-called new strategic concept document disregards facts, confuses black and white... (and) smears China's foreign policy," foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a regular briefing Thursday.
He added that China "firmly opposes it".
"We would like to warn NATO that hyping up the so-called China threat is completely futile," Zhao told reporters.
Leading NATO power the United States has pushed for the alliance to pay greater attention to China, despite reluctance from some allies to switch attention away from its focus on Europe.
Beijing has refused to condemn its ally Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.
NATO, whose guiding document was updated for the first time since 2010, also accused China of targeting its members with "malicious hybrid and cyber operations and its confrontational rhetoric".
But Zhao hit back, saying that China did not pose "the systemic challenge imagined".
He said it was NATO that is a "systemic challenge to world peace and stability" and its "hands are stained with the blood of the world's people".
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