On the eve of the NATO Summit in London last December, the Alliance’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg addressed the need for a collective response to China’s emergence as a global power. “This is not about moving NATO into the South China Sea,” he stated, “but it’s about taking into account that China is coming closer to us—in the Arctic, in Africa, investing heavily in our infrastructure in Europe, in cyberspace.” At the summit, NATO heads of state diplomatically declared that China has become a concern: “we recognize that China’s growing influence and international policies present both opportunities and challenges that we need to address together as an Alliance.”
