"China Is NATO’s New Problem" Topic

"Over the past decade, Chinese companies have invested billions of dollars throughout Europe—buying up critical infrastructure and increasing Beijing's political clout across the continent. As Chinese firms, often with strong ties to the state and Chinese Communist Party (CCP), acquire parts of sensitive ports, pipelines, and telecommunication networks, China's incursions into Europe's security umbrella are drawing serious concern.

But NATO, long worried about Russia, has largely been silent on China. Now, that is changing. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg recently called on the alliance to stand up to Beijing's "bullying and coercion," underscoring how China's rise is fundamentally shifting the global balance of power. It's apparent that NATO can no longer ignore the threat. If the alliance hopes to remain competitive, it will need to develop a new strategy for dealing with Beijing…"
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Amicalement
Armand

Well, NATO has to have a problem with someone in order to justify its existence. It may as well be China. :-)

Surely China would not use its ownership in various businesses and infrastructure to bring Europe to its knees, and ensure it gets its way at every opportunity in the future.

That's capitalism for you.

Bear in that ownership of and investment in corporations headquartered within the EU could be sequestered…. And the EU could probably take the hit of the resulting economic reprisals – under normal circumstances. Bearing in mind that such an extreme action would only occur with extreme provocation. Also simply owning a chunk of stock and/or shares doesn't necessarily grant much in the way of day to day control or even influence over a corporate entity. Purchasing sensitive digital infrastructure may be a different matter, but GCHQ's main concern over the UKs 5G network seemed to revolve around poor quality software engineering!

(smile)

Amicalement
Armand