China has warned NATO against \u201cprovoking confrontation\u201d over its ties with Russia after the Western military alliance accused Beijing of being a \u201cdecisive enabler\u201d of Moscow\u2019s war against Ukraine. The warning on Thursday came as NATO leaders meeting in Washington, DC, promised to bolster Ukraine and Europe\u2019s defences against Russia and made clear that China was also becoming a focus of the alliance. A spokesperson for Beijing\u2019s mission to the European Union said NATO should \u201cstop hyping up the so-called China threat and provoking confrontation and rivalry, and do more to contribute to world peace and stability\u201d. China, which has deepened strategic ties with Russia, has refused to condemn Moscow\u2019s invasion of Ukraine. It has presented itself as a neutral party in the war and says it is not sending lethal assistance to either side, unlike the US and other Western nations. Beijing, however, has offered a critical lifeline to Russia\u2019s isolated economy, with trade booming since the conflict began. The 32 NATO members, in their final communique on Wednesday, expressed \u201cprofound concern\u201d over Beijing\u2019s deepening partnership with Moscow. They said China has \u201cbecome a decisive enabler of Russia\u2019s war against Ukraine through its so-called \u2018no limits\u2019 partnership and its large-scale support for Russia\u2019s defence industrial base\u201d. \u201cThis increases the threat Russia poses to its neighbours and to Euro-Atlantic security,\u201d they said, urging China \u201cto cease all material and political support to Russia\u2019s war effort\u201d. Beijing \u201ccannot enable the largest war in Europe in recent history without this negatively impacting its interests and reputation\u201d, they added. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters that China provides equipment, microelectronics and tools that are allowing Russia \u201cto build the missiles, to build the bombs, to build the aircraft, to build the weapons they use to attack Ukraine\u201d. He said it was the first time all NATO allies had stated this so clearly in an agreed document. Beijing\u2019s spokesperson dismissed the criticism, however, saying, \u201cAs we all know, China is not the creator of the crisis in Ukraine.\u201d \u201cThe declaration of the NATO summit in Washington is full of Cold War mentality and belligerent rhetoric, and China-related content is full of provocations, lies, incitement and smears,\u201d the official told reporters. They added that China\u2019s core position is to \u201cpromote peace talks and political settlement\u201d, a reference to a 12-point peace plan Beijing issued more than a year ago that set out general principles for ending the war.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
China has warned NATO against \u201cprovoking confrontation\u201d over its ties with Russia after the Western military alliance accused Beijing of being a \u201cdecisive enabler\u201d of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18374,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}