(CNN) — When the Russian armed forces launched an unprovoked attack on Ukraine last month, China appeared to side with Moscow, accusing the United States and its NATO allies of provoke the conflict by allowing his security bloc to expand to the east.
Now, as China faces pressure from the West to condemn the Russian invasion, similar rhetoric is mounting about America’s footprint in Asia.
In recent days, senior Chinese Foreign Ministry officials and influential Communist Party publications have accused the US of wanting to build a NATO-like bloc in the Indo-Pacific, with one official warning of the consequences.” unimaginable” if you do.
At a conference in Beijing on Saturday, Chikna Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng said the Ukraine crisis could be used as a “mirror” to see the security situation in the Asia-Pacific region.
The British Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth in the South China Sea in July 2021.
Le did not name the United States, but did refer explicitly to the Indo-Pacific strategy, a plan the Biden administration detailed last month to strengthen the role of the United States in the regionfor example, by supporting democracy and strengthening its alliances and partnerships, including with Taiwan.
China’s criticism of NATO
The construction of “small circles or closed and exclusive groups” in the region “is as dangerous as NATO’s strategy of eastward expansion in Europe,” Le said at the event held at Tsinghua University, according to a version of the speech released by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“If allowed to continue unchecked, it will bring unimaginable consequences and ultimately push the Asia-Pacific to the brink,” he said.
China’s criticism of NATO comes after attempts to present itself as a neutral actor in the Ukraine crisis, refusing to denounce Russia’s attacks against the civilian populationwhile highlighting its humanitarian aid to Ukraine and denies having considered the possibility of providing military support to Moscow.
However, China’s attempt to draw parallels between the US strategy in the Indo-Pacific and NATO’s “eastward expansion” in Europe echoes Moscow’s arguments, raising serious questions about the supposed neutrality of Beijing.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly tried to use concern over NATO to justify his brutal invasion of Ukraine. Now, experts say that China is trying to use the ongoing crisis in Ukraine not only to amplify its portrayal of the United States as a suspected instigator of conflict, whether in Europe or Asia, but to warn of the consequences if the United States and the countries in the region line up against China.
China “takes advantage” of the crisis
Washington’s emphasis on the Indo-Pacific has come as China pursues a more aggressive foreign policy, doubling down on its territorial claims and taking a tougher line in response to perceived challenges.
In recent years, Chinese overruled the ruling of a UN court dismissing its extensive territorial claims in the South China Sea, while continuing to militarize itss positions there and harassing other claimants. It has also increased its threats against Taiwan’s self-government, with record fighter jet raids in the island’s air defense identification zone in recent months.
“It is not surprising that China takes advantage of the Ukrainian crisis to lash out at the Indo-Pacific strategy,” said Li Mingjiang, associate professor and chair of international relations at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) at the Nanyang Technological University, in Singapore.
Li noted China’s “growing concern” over the rejuvenation of the security forum “Quad” between India, Japan, Australia and the US, and the security pact AUKUS between Australia, the UK and the US, as well as the firm commitment of the US to maintain its long-standing role in the region, outlined in Biden’s Indo-Pacific strategy last month.
“The intent is clear: China wants to send this message to the US and to countries in the region that the Indo-Pacific strategy and US security alliances could also generate some similar security dynamics (to those) seen in Europe.” with the participation of Russia,” Li said.
This message is also sent before an “extraordinary” NATO summit this Thursday, in which US President Joe Biden will meet with allied leaders in Brussels to discuss the situation in Ukraine, in another sign of the surprising solidarity of the bloc since the beginning of the crisis.
A message from China to the United States and NATO
Vice Foreign Minister Le’s warnings about the US presence in the Indo-Pacific were echoed by China’s ambassador to ASEAN at a press conference in Jakarta on Monday.
There, Ambassador Deng Xijun accused the US of “creating a set of ‘gang rules’ while claiming to uphold the international order” and leading the region “down an evil path,” according to Chinese state media The Paper. .
A similar tone was taken in an op-ed in China’s People’s Liberation Army Daily, republished last weekend on the website of the influential Communist Party magazine Qiushi, which took aim at the Indo-China strategy. Pacific and stated that the creation of blocs by the US was an “important reason for the continued sharpening and escalation of the Ukraine issue”.
This is not the first time that China has tried to draw parallels between US Indo-Pacific strategy and NATO in recent years, and the concerns go to the heart of a key position that has brought Russia and China closer: their mutual distrust of each other. United States.
This was revealed in a joint statement of 5,000 words published weeks before the invasion of Ukraine, in which both expressed their opposition to the “further enlargement of NATO” and promised to “remain very attentive to the negative impact of the US strategy in the Indo-Pacific”.
But experts point out that there are big differences between NATO, a security alliance, and the US strategy in the Indo-Pacific, which is not limited to security but includes a range of policies. The US, with its long border on the Pacific Ocean and the island state of Hawaii, also has territories in the Indo-Pacific, including Guam.
Other nations have also increased their activities in the region in an effort to counter China’s influence. Last year, UK sent its greatest concentration of sea power and air to carry out joint exercises in the Philippine Sea, while Germany sent a warship across the South China Sea for the first time in nearly two decades. France also announced a plan last year to boost its maritime cooperation with the South Pacific. China has often opposed such actions, denouncing what it sees as a containment effort.
The Chinese stance, meanwhile, ignores the fact that US security partnerships have sprung up in response to China’s own rapid military modernization, according to Drew Thompson, a senior fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in New York. the National University of Singapore.
The United States is “increasingly drawn to deeper and stronger security alliances due to (China’s military) modernization” and Beijing’s “lack of openness and transparency” to its neighbors about its intentions, Thompson said.
But Chinese leaders “do not see a connection between other countries in the region guarding against China’s military modernization” through relations with the United States, he added.
The Taiwan Question
Another much closer issue may also explain why China is willing to bring up its concern for the United States in the Asia-Pacific region in the midst of the Ukraine crisis: Taiwan.
This was suggested in a 110-minute video meeting between US President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinpingon Friday, in which Xi’s concerns over Taiwan were clearly a focal point for the Chinese side.
“Some people in the United States have sent the wrong signal to the ‘Taiwan independence’ forces. This is very dangerous. The mishandling of the question of Taiwan it will have a disruptive impact on bilateral ties,” Xi told Biden, according to a Foreign Ministry readout.
Analysts have drawn comparisons between authoritarian threats to Ukraine and Taiwan, an autonomous island democracy that Beijing claims as its own and has not ruled out taking by force. Earlier this month, a group of former US defense and security officials butter in Taipei in a sign of US support amid the European crisis.
This also connects with China’s broader concerns in the Indo-Pacific, said RSIS’s Li.
“If there is a conflict over the Taiwan issue, the worst case scenario (for China) would be that not only would China have to fight a war against Taiwan, against the United States, (but) maybe some allies of the United States would participate against Chinese,” he said.