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China spends a lot of diplomatic breath on NATO not because NATO is a direct threat, but because it wants to discredit the concept of defence treaty organisatio
by livueta 3y ago
China spends a lot of diplomatic breath on NATO not because NATO is a direct threat, but because it wants to discredit the concept of defence treaty organisations, especially within and standing against the aspired spheres of influence of great powers. A South China Sea NATO lookalike is a major nightmare, and if NATO proper is discredited the odds of that fall dramatically. If the US is seen to fink out on Estonia or whatever, the geopolitical calculations in the Philippines change dramatically.
- kibwen 3y agoTrue, but I think it's unlikely that Putin will test article 5 by invading the Baltics before China attacks Taiwan (if anything, the invasion of Taiwan is Putin's best chance of establishing a land bridge to Kaliningrad; without the US's complete attention, NATO's ability to break a Russian blockade in the Baltic Sea is bleak). And once China has Taiwan and a secured route to the Pacific, it doesn't need to care nearly as much whether or not the rest of its neighbors are militarily aligned.