Conclusions
Rather than going global and setting its sights on a confrontation with China, NATO should seek to work with China to create a more stable and secure world. China must be engaged, not contained. Despite the reality of a hardening of Chinese policy domestically and externally, especially in an East Asian context, this does not amount to a challenge to the global order. By exaggerating the Chinese ‘threat’ and casting the country as an ‘enemy’, the United States and NATO are likely to encourage an even harder line from Beijing. Given the undoubted mutual antagonism between Washington and Beijing, Europe’s role should be to act as a diplomatic bridge between the two sides, as happened to limited extent during the first Cold War. This does not preclude European politicians speaking out and taking action over Chinese human rights abuses. And they should also continue to promote liberal democracy, humanism and internationalism in engaging with China. As the British journalist Jonathan Freedland notes, perhaps the answer begins in finding allies and taking on the undramatic, often unglamorous work of diplomacy, and then “advancing bit by bit towards something better”.
https://natowatch.org//sites/default/files/2020-08/nato_watch_observatory_no.54.pdf
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