Varna, 29 May 2011 - NATO SHOULD DEEPEN DIALOGUE WITH CHINA, PARLIAMENTARY ASSEMBLY SAYS

Ranking first globally for population and energy consumption, second for its economy and with the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal, China ’s rise has been paid “insufficient attention” by NATO, said Agov, presenting the draft report at the Assembly’s Spring Session in Varna, Bulgaria.

Although bilateral relations with several individual allies are good, there is a need for increased policy coordination and institutional transparency between NATO and China, he told the Assembly’s Political Committee.

“We also need to speak more to the Chinese, to different elements of Chinese society,” Agov said. “Then we can make better decisions about our relations.”

In addition to its size and growth, “China has begun to pursue a more active foreign policy,” he said. “It increasingly participates in global political and security debates, many of which impact directly and indirectly on NATO security concerns.”

Furthermore, in March 2010, Beijing announced a 7.5 per cent increase in its military budget to approximately 78.6 billion US dollars, Agov said in his introduction to the draft report.

“Given these figures, and concerns about them, it is important as an Alliance that we try to understand Chinese foreign and security policy,” he said.

Concerns were also increasing over Beijing ’s close relations with regimes such as North Korea, and the manner of Chinese economic expansion into Africa, Agov said.

The situation was complex, he admitted. “We are now watching an increasingly complex, partially contradictory China; outwardly confident and powerful and at times assertive,” but also an inwardly conflicted country that “needs to address its internal challenges,” he said.

Those challenges include a delicate economic balancing act by Beijing, said Johannes Pflug, who heads the German government’s parliamentary group on China. The country needs to maintain economic growth of at least 8 per cent to avoid massive unemployment, he explained, but such high growth also raises the risk of inflation, and increases the need for raw materials.

China also had to tread a fine geopolitical line, he said, responding to earlier criticism of Beijing ’s diplomatic alignment. Relations with Pyongyang were far from simple, Pflug said, and in fact characterized by mistrust. China does not want to see the North Korean regime crumble, for fear of a flood of refugees across the border, and also to avoid the US troops currently stationed in South Korea moving up the peninsula and closer to its own territory, he explained.

But NATO and China have some interests in common, and many opportunities for cooperation are available, the delegates agreed. In Afghanistan for example, China “needs security to get the best return on its investments,” Agov said.

“NATO and China also have overlapping concerns in Central Asia and the Middle East,” including Islamist terrorists, drug trafficking, and the security of the shipping lanes off Eastern Africa, he said.

The Assembly is planning a visit to China in September, Agov said, adding that he planned to “enquire with senior officials about China ’s interest in further developing contacts with the Alliance.”

It is one of the assets of the Parliamentary Assembly to “always be ahead of the NATO curve,” said Loïc Bouvard, deputy head of the French delegation and former president of the Assembly himself. “This should be useful when it comes to dialogue with China.”