NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said after the meeting: “We have agreed to cooperate more closely with Australia, Japan and Asia-Pacific countries.” “This is also… how to deal with a stronger China.”

Stoltenberg and other NATO leaders said that although they want to maintain a dialogue with Beijing, they are also watching China’s military modernization with concern.

NATO hopes to include China in a certain arms control framework, but it is coldly treated by Beijing.

In many respects, the NATO summit’s high attention to China indicates the beginning of a major strategic shift.

“I think, as I have said many times, China is a huge fact in our lives and a new strategic consideration for NATO,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said today when the leaders arrived at NATO headquarters. . power.

While participating in the NATO summit and the weekend gathering of leaders of the British Group of Seven, the administration of US President Joe Biden made it clear that it is their top priority to let allies and like-minded countries pay attention to China.

For Biden, this is also a fence-building exercise after former US President Donald Trump has questioned NATO members over the past four years about military spending and questioned the value of the alliance.

“I want to be clear,” Biden said before the bilateral meeting with Stoltenberg. “NATO itself is vital to the interests of the United States. Without NATO, we would have to invent one.”

Although all 30 member states have signed the communiqué, some European member states are skeptical of NATO’s strategic fulcrum in confronting China when NATO faces a belligerent Russia.

“Russia is an obvious threat, and we also emphasize here because of Russia’s aggression,” Estonian Prime Minister Kajakalas said at a panel discussion organized by the Brussels Forum and the US-German Marshall Fund. “They must show it in action.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was in the same group and stated that the alliance is capable of dealing with both countries at the same time.

“Of course we can chew gum while walking,” he said. “We can recognize that Russia is a very real and real threat… even if we recognize the challenges of the Pacific and China.”

Unlike many other leaders, Trudeau did not accept media interviews after the summit, but continued with a round of bilateral talks, including talks with the EU presidency.

At the same time, let Stoltenberg disappointed two countries eager to join NATO: Ukraine and Georgia.

For more than a decade, the two countries have been lobbying to join the alliance. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has increasingly called on NATO to put Ukraine on the path of a full membership.

Stoltenberg opened its doors to members today, promising to increase training for capacity building. But Zelensky spread chaos on Twitter, giving the impression that NATO has approved a membership action plan.

Biden refuted this view, saying that Ukraine still needs to “clean up corruption” and meet other criteria needed to join NATO.

Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a severe warning in an interview with Russian state television about the prospect of Ukraine’s accession to NATO and the valuable security guarantees stipulated in Article 5 of the North Atlantic Charter-the clause stated that An attack on a member is an attack on a member. All.

‘Russia…has no say’

Putin claimed without citing any sources that more than half of the Ukrainian population opposed joining NATO. He said that Ukrainians are not prepared to put themselves in the crossfire of a potential conflict.

“These people are smart people,” Putin said. “They understand that they don’t want to end on the firing line, and they don’t want to be bargaining chips or cannon fodder.”

When asked whether Ukraine could join NATO without Russia’s permission, Stoltenberg was furious.

“The message to be conveyed is that Ukraine and the 30 allies should decide when Ukraine can become a NATO member,” he said. “Of course, Russia has no say because they don’t… they can’t deny what their neighbors can do.”

Also at the summit, the alliance closed the curtain on its participation in Afghanistan for the past two years and expressed the hope that Kabul’s security forces — most of which are trained by NATO members — can control the country.