"The U.S. and allies across Europe and the Asia-Pacific are holding together in confronting what they see as an increasingly entwined challenge from Russia and China, with a bout of diplomacy this past week showing the resilience as well as the limits of allied unity.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in Lithuania offered new support for Ukraine, maintaining alliance cohesion though stopping short of granting Kyiv a clear path to membership while the country remains in conflict with Russia. The group for the first time called out Beijing for working with Moscow and their "mutually reinforcing attempts to undercut the rules-based international order."
The diplomatic choreography underscores the balancing act the Biden administration is conducting. If Russia with its conflict in Ukraine is the more urgent priority for the U.S. and its allies, tighter coordination between Moscow and Beijing raises the prospect of a two-front conflict on both ends of the Eurasian continent.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping has aligned Beijing more closely with Russia in the past decade to undermine the U.S.-led world order. That appeared to increase when Xi traveled to Moscow in March. He urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to work together to drive that change.
For the U.S., with its security commitments to allies in Europe and Asia, simultaneous challenges from Moscow and Beijing could stretch American military resources, making dependable alliances all the more necessary.
"If there is one thing that has changed in the past year it is the impact of the no-limits partnership between Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin," said Mathieu Droin, a former French foreign ministry official now at the Washington think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies. That perspective, he said, is felt especially keenly among Central and Eastern European allies on the front lines of Russian pressure.
"They are more and more genuinely convinced that China and Russia are two faces of the same coin, and they are more and more internally convinced of the need to tackle the China challenge," Droin said.
With the U.S. still the dominant NATO member, Biden sought to use the summit to mobilize allies to confront Russia and China, while holding together the security alliance of 31 nations whose strategic priorities at times diverge.
Biden ruled out quick Ukrainian membership before the summit opened, saying its democracy wasn't ready. His administration shut down last-minute attempts by Ukraine and its NATO supporters to discuss a timeline for joining, calling it a distraction to ending the conflict.
The issue risked splitting NATO following an angry message on Twitter from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky before he arrived at the summit. Ultimately, the U.S. got its way on Ukraine.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed to allow Sweden to join NATO, potentially ending a yearlong impasse and expanding the alliance. On the sidelines, the Group of Seven leading economies, which includes six NATO members and Japan, jointly declared support for Ukraine, a step forward in providing Kyiv security guarantees while it waits for membership.
Biden touted an expanded role for Japan in the Ukraine coalition as a win for his globalist foreign policy. Japan attended NATO's summit for the second year running alongside Washington's other close allies from the Asia-Pacific -- South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.
Biden said he brought the NATO and Asia-Pacific allies to the summit "to deepen connections between the Atlantic and Pacific democracies." He praised them for standing together during events in Ukraine and glancingly suggested they might have to do so against China.
Getting the disparate nations to act in concert is proving difficult. French President Emmanuel Macron, for one, has said Europe shouldn't be dragged into a conflict over Taiwan. Beijing vows to take control of the democratically run island, with which the U.S. has growing defense ties.
Rather than drive confrontation with China, the NATO summit held out the possibility of working with Beijing. A priority for the Biden administration has been to keep China from bolstering Russia with armaments, despite expanding Chinese purchases of Russian energy. The NATO communique urged China to refrain from providing lethal aid and to play a constructive role in the United Nations Security Council.” [1]
1. World News: U.S., Allies Stick Together to Confront Global Tensions. Hutzler, Charles;
Michaels, Daniel.
Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 15 July 2023: A.7.
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