Don’t make same mistake with China as we did with Russia, warns Nato chief

The West must not risk being blackmailed by China, as it was by Russia – that’s the lesson from the Ukraine war, warned Jens Stoltenberg in his final speech as Nato secretary general.
Jens Stoltenberg is stepping down after ten years at the helm of the Euro-Atlantic alliance.
At the time of the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia was the largest source of Europe’s pipeline gas. EU countries also bought vast amounts of coal, oil and nuclear fuel from Russia.
Russian energy was cheap, close at hand and, it was thought, the economic partnership would keep President Putin in check.
It is clear now that this was a massive miscalculation.
“Russia used gas as a weapon to try to coerce us and to prevent us from supporting Ukraine”, said Jens Stoltenberg.
When Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, the West objected, but did not stand in the way.
Although military support for Ukraine subsequently increased, including training and professionalising the Ukrainian army, Russian gas continued to flow into Europe. In 2015, European countries signed a new agreement with Moscow to build a second major gas pipeline into Europe, Nord Stream 2.
Putin seemed to have Europe in his hands.
It was only after the full-scale invasion in 2022 that the West sided with Ukraine’s independence over cheap energy. But the result was a painful – and as yet unfinished – process of ending dependency on Russian energy.
Two years on, the EU has drastically cut pipeline gas imports from Russia. Sanctions make it illegal to import Russian coal, oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG). But there are exceptions and loopholes. Landlocked Hungary, for example, continues to receive two-thirds of its gas from Russia.
“We must not make the same mistake with China”, warned Jens Stoltenberg.
“Depending on Chinese rare earth minerals, exporting advanced technologies and allowing foreign control over critical infrastructure weakens our resilience and creates risks.”
Militarily, like Russia over the last decade, China is becoming increasingly confident and domineering on the world stage.
Nato’s 32 members have collectively declared that China’s “ambitions and coercive policies continue to challenge our interests, security and values”.
China is also cooperating with Russia, including carrying out joint military exercises over the past week.
China has denied sending Russia weapons for its war in Ukraine, but analysts believe China does supply useful components – so-called ‘dual-use items’ – that Russia can no longer source from the West.
The European Union now openly admits that its economic relationship with China is “critically unbalanced”. But could China use Europe’s economic dependence – as Russia did – as leverage for its broader ambitions?
“Of course, we will continue to engage with China, but we must not trade short term economic interests for long term security needs”, Stoltenberg insisted.
That’s a difficult mantra for political leaders to accept.
Under President von der Leyen, the EU has started to pursue a policy of ‘de-risking, not decoupling’ from China. That involves looking elsewhere for imports of rare materials to diversify its import markets whilst not cutting off China altogether.
But the temptation of cheap Chinese imports remains strong.
During a trip to Beijing earlier this month, Spain’s Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, suddenly announced that he thought EU tariffs on electric cars, to try and stop China undercutting the European market, was wrong.
Germany has since sided with Spain. A vote on those tariffs, due next week, has reportedly now been postponed.
It’s an example of how China’s economic prowess has given it political persuasiveness.
As Jens Stoltenberg hands over the baton to the next Nato chief, he says the West must come to realise that “freedom is more important than free trade”.