• 1bluepixel@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    7
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    1 year ago

    Except we all know the U.S. is aggressively containing China. NATO getting into the China containment business sends a terrible message.

    • Newstart@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      15
      ·
      1 year ago

      Can you elaborate on the terrible message? I don’t think China prefers US to be in their backyard than NATO. NATO is purely defensive, so unless China had intentions to attack a NATO country it wouldn’t matter. But US has multiple defence agreements with some countries in the region and some of them is on China’s crosshairs. Which makes a confrontation with US higher then with NATO.

      • 1bluepixel@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        7
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        The terrible message is precisely that NATO is only defensive in theory, but is willing to expand into the Pacific to defend a territory that is nowhere near its original purview.

        The problem with the “purely defensive” argument is that historically, NATO Article 5 has been invoked to declare a war on a country that only indirectly threatened a NATO ally’s regional stability. That’s how NATO ended up bombing Serbia, which was doing despicable things to Albanians, but was not threatening NATO sovereignty to a degree that justifies Article 5.

        Add these two together and China’s opposition to a NATO presence in the Pacific makes a whole lot of sense.