At a summit also attended by leaders from Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand, NATO revised its mission statement to discuss the “challenge” presented by China. The document is also harshly critical of Chinese behavior in a variety of ways. The Chinese responded, as usual, by suggesting that the US is leading the rest of the developed world by the nose and threatening consequences for Europe, a key trade partner.
Xi has to be alarmed; encirclement is becoming more of a reality every day. But what did he expect? Did he think that China could engage in belligerent “Wolf Warrior” diplomacy, throttle the rights of people in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, continually threaten Taiwan, and openly support Russian aggression without provoking a response from the liberal democratic world? Did he believe that China has so much money, it can buy off even countries with far larger per capita GDPs?
We used to be told that China was sensitive to the analogy putting it in the position of the German Empire prior to World War I. Xi seems to have forgotten that lesson. Having effectively given Putin a blank check in Ukraine, he increasingly resembles the blustering Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1914.