NATO urges Indo-Pacific alliance amid China's rising military threat
WASHINGTON: Speaking at Chatham House in London, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Secretary General Mark Rutte signaled the alarm over China's fast-tracked military growth and its tightening coalition with Russia, Iran, and North Korea.
According to the latest South China Morning Post (SCMP) report, Rutte, the former Dutch prime minister, cautioned that China's goals extend far beyond its borders and pose a direct threat to international security, advising NATO to expand and fortify its partnerships in the Indo-Pacific.
'What we see at the moment is an enormous build-up in China of their military capabilities,' he said, alluding to the People's Liberation Army's nautical supremacy, which is by now the biggest in the world. With its battle strength projected to increase to 435 ships by 2030 and nuclear missiles possibly exceeding 1,000, Rutte said NATO must not brush it off or ignore it.
The Pentagon has assessed beforehand that China's shipbuilding capability is more than 200 times that of the U.S., highlighting the rapidity and extent of Beijing's military development. See also Defeat in Nov election mean prison for Donald Trump? Alliance of autocracies
Rutte did not beat around the bush in depicting China's position with what he called a 'really awful foursome'—Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China itself. He accused Beijing of supporting Russia's combat in Ukraine by providing technology that aids in rebuilding the Russian army, assertions that China has continually refuted.
Beijing contends that it has not supplied assistance and claims that it continues to have strict and tight controls over dual-use exportations. Thus far, the European Union has fined Chinese businesses suspected of providing paraphernalia and resources that may back up Russia's military-industrial complex.
Rutte stressed that these dealings are not remote regional matters but a component of a worldwide mesh of volatility. 'We cannot think that there is one theatre, which is the Euro-Atlantic theatre,' he said. 'This is all interconnected with what is happening in the Pacific.' Indo-Pacific partnerships and defence spending on the rise
Rutte's comments come as NATO intensifies its reach to Indo-Pacific partners, including Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand—countries that he said are 'really worried about what's happening in the Pacific.' See also Australian police open probe into 'Chinese spy' claims
As NATO aims for a more comprehensive universal role, China has articulated forceful disapproval of what it views as NATO's 'eastward expansion.' A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman warned that the Asia-Pacific does not need 'an Asia-Pacific version of NATO.'
As tensions intensify across numerous theatres, NATO's message under Rutte is clear-cut—the pressures and coercions are worldwide, so the coalition must be too.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNA
an hour ago
- CNA
Oracle beats quarterly results estimates on cloud services demand, shares rise
Oracle beat Wall Street estimates for fourth-quarter results on Wednesday, boosted by growing demand for its cloud offerings from companies deploying artificial intelligence, sending its shares up 7 per cent after the bell. The company's growth is largely nurtured by its Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) solution and support for AI workloads. Analysts see the company becoming more of a cloud service provider that relies less on software growth. "We expect our total cloud growth rate — applications plus infrastructure — will increase from 24 per cent in fiscal year 2025 to over 40 per cent in fiscal year 2026," said CEO Safra Catz. Revenue for the quarter ended May 31 stood at $15.90 billion, compared with the analysts' average estimate of $15.59 billion, according to data compiled by LSEG. Quarterly revenue at Oracle's largest unit, cloud services and license support, grew 14 per cent to $11.70 billion from last year. Oracle has also been introducing AI assistants, advisers and agents. Its AI Agent Studio, announced in March, is designed to help customers and partners build their own customized AI agents.
CNA
2 hours ago
- CNA
Consumer Reports urges Congress to drop electric vehicle tax proposal
WASHINGTON :An influential consumer organization on Wednesday urged Republican lawmakers to drop a plan to impose a proposed $250 annual fee on electric cars to pay for road repairs. Consumer Reports, which also tests and rates new vehicles, noted that Republican Senator Bernie Moreno has called for boosting the proposed yearly fee to $500 for EVs and $250 for plug-in hybrids versus the tax and budget bill over the fee in the bill approved by the U.S. House in May. WHY IT'S IMPORTANT The fees would mean consumers would pay anywhere from three to seven times as much as owners of similar conventional gasoline vehicles in federal gas taxes, Consumer Reports said. The new fees could hit Tesla, GM other EV owners. KEY QUOTES Chris Harto, senior policy analyst at Consumer Reports said the EV fees were "punitive taxes designed to confiscate fuel savings from consumers who just want to save money for their families." CONTEXT Lawmakers in April dropped a $20 federal yearly registration fee on all vehicles starting in 2031 to fund road repairs. The U.S. House bill would end a $7,500 tax credit for new EVs for most automakers by Dec. 31, end a $4,000 used car EV tax credit, repeal vehicle emissions rules and kill an Energy Department loan program that supports the manufacture of green advanced technology vehicles. It would also phase out EV battery production tax credits in 2028. Ford said the bill's provision to eliminate EV battery production using Chinese technology threatens the automaker's projected $3 billion investment in a Marshall, Michigan, plant that is 60 per cent complete and slated to employ 1,700 workers. On Thursday, President Donald Trump will sign three resolutions approved by lawmakers barring California's electric vehicle sales mandates and diesel engine rules, auto industry and House aides told Reuters.
CNA
2 hours ago
- CNA
CoreWeave to offer compute capacity in Google's new cloud deal with OpenAI, sources say
CoreWeave has emerged as a winner in Google's newly signed partnership with OpenAI, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters, in the latest example of the voracious appetite for computing resources in the artificial-intelligence industry and the formation of new alliances to meet them. The so-called neocloud company, which sells cloud computing services built on Nvidia's graphics processing units, is slated to provide computing capacity to Google's cloud unit, and Alphabet's Google will then sell that computing capacity to OpenAI to meet the growing demand for services like ChatGPT, the sources said. Google will also provide some of its own computing resources to OpenAI, added the sources, who requested anonymity to discuss private matters. The details of the arrangement, first reported by Reuters on Tuesday, highlight the evolving dynamics between hyperscalers like Microsoft and Google and so-called neocloud companies like Coreweave. Hyperscalers are large cloud service providers that offer massive-scale data centers and cloud infrastructure. The insatiable hunger for computing resources has generated major investment commitments and turned rivals into partners. Backed by OpenAI and Nvidia, Coreweave signed up Google as a customer in the first quarter. CoreWeave, Google and OpenAI declined to comment. CoreWeave, a specialized cloud provider that went public in March, has already been a major supplier of OpenAI's infrastructure. It has signed a five-year contract worth $11.9 billion with OpenAI to provide dedicated computing capacity for OpenAI's model training and inference. OpenAI also took a $350 million equity stake in CoreWeave in March. This partnership was further expanded last month through an additional agreement worth up to $4 billion, extending through April 2029, underscoring OpenAI's escalating demand for high-performance computing resources. Industry insiders say adding Google Cloud as a new customer could help CoreWeave diversify its revenue sources, and having a credible partner with deep pockets like Google enables the startup to secure more favorable financing terms to support ambitious data center buildouts across the country. This could also boost Google's cloud unit, which generated $43 billion in sales last year, allowing it to capitalize on the growth of OpenAI, which is also one of its largest competitors in areas like search and chatbots. It positions Google as a neutral provider of computing resources in competition with peers such as Amazon and Microsoft. CoreWeave's deal with Google coincides with Microsoft's re-evaluation of its data center strategy, including withdrawing from certain data center leases. Microsoft, once Coreweave's largest customer, accounting for about 62 per cent of its 2024 revenue, is also renegotiating with OpenAI to revise the terms of their multibillion-dollar investment, including the future equity stake it will hold in OpenAI. CoreWeave, backed by Nvidia, has established itself as a fast-rising provider of GPU-based cloud infrastructure in the AI wave. While its public debut in March was met with a lukewarm response due to concerns over its highly leveraged capital structure and shifting GPU demand, the company's stock has surged since its IPO price of $40 per share, gaining over 270 per cent and reaching a record high of $166.63 in June.
