China, Its Military Might Expanding, Accuses NATO of Hypocrisy - The New York Times

carrier group sailed into the South China Sea.

China now faces a world that increasingly views its economic and military might as a threat that must be confronted, as NATO’s leaders made clear in their summit in Brussels.

While China poses virtually no direct military threat to Europe, which is NATO’s home field, it can now flex its military power in ways that were unimaginable only a few years ago — not only in Asia, but also globally.

Even as NATO leaders met in Brussels, the American aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan and several other warships moved into the disputed waters of the South China Sea, with the group’s commander, Rear Adm.

Hours later, 28 Chinese fighter jets and other aircraft — the largest fleet in years — conducted their own show of force over waters south of Taiwan, the island democracy that China claims as its own.

Only days before, the Group of 7 leaders, meeting in Cornwall, England, had for the first time issued a statement on Taiwan, calling for China to support peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait following a series of menacing Chinese military operations like those on Tuesday.

The declarations by the Group of 7 and NATO are in part the fruition of President Biden’s strategy to build a coalition of like-minded nations to confront China over its activities.

In its communiqué, NATO stopped short of declaring China a threat, as it has Russia under President Vladimir V.

The NATO leaders cited China’s rising military spending, its modernizing nuclear arsenal, “advances in the space domain” and cyberwarfare and asymmetric activities, including the spread of disinformation.

Little of what NATO warned about China is new.

The foreign ministry spokesman, Zhao Lijian, on Tuesday accused NATO of hypocrisy, noting that the alliance’s collective military spending far outpaced China’s.

Its swarming of “fishing” vessels at rests and islets in the South China Sea claimed by the Philippines could push that country back more closely into an alliance with the United States that had been fraying under President Rodrigo Duterte.