The three-day NATO summit that took place in Madrid concluded on Thursday with a session on terrorism and North Africa affairs.
Heads of state, government officials, foreign and defense ministers of 30 NATO member countries attended the session held in the morning on the last day of the summit.
A blueprint for the alliance (2022 Strategic Concept) for the next decade was approved at its Madrid summit a day earlier, which accuses China of pursuing “coercive policies” that threaten NATO’s interests, security and values.
On the same day as the NATO meeting was wrapping up, at a news conference in Beijing, China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian took the opportunity to lash out at NATO; saying that the alliance has the blood of the global population on its hands.
“NATO itself is a systemic challenge to global peace and stability. The US-led organization, while positioning itself as a defensive bloc, has sought to advance into new areas and domains,” Zhao Lijian said.
He urged the military bloc to immediately stop its “baseless criticism and provocative statements” against China and refrain from Cold War ideology and the zero-sum game concept.
“We want to state openly that NATO is exaggerating and inflating the so-called Chinese threat, and this is an absolutely futile endeavor,” Zhao Lijian added.
Meanwhile, NATO has also raised concerns over “China’s malicious hybrid and cyber operations and its confrontational rhetoric and disinformation,” while also accusing Beijing of trying “to control key technological and industrial sectors, critical infrastructure, and strategic materials and supply chains.”
It cites the deepening strategic partnership between China and Russia as a threat, saying that “their mutually reinforcing attempts to undercut the rules-based international order run counter to our values and interests.”
