“China and Belarus are holding joint anti-terrorist exercises on NATO borders,” Russian newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets reports.
They began on Monday, July 8, and will last 11 days, “a few kilometers from the border with Poland”, a little further than the border with Ukraine. The first secondary schools in history with Chinese participation on the borders of Europe (and from NATO), take place a few days after the ratification of Belarus’ accession to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
Minsk became the tenth member of this Eurasian intergovernmental structure, founded by China and Russia and later expanded with India and Iran.
And all this while the war in Ukraine continues with no end in sight. And NATO is celebrating its 75th anniversary in Washington, with deterrence of China at the top of the agenda.
For the third year in a row, the leaders of the Indo-Pacific allies – New Zealand, Japan, South Korea and Australia – are present at the NATO summit.
Are we slowly moving towards a NATO that will be much less North Atlantic and that will conquer the Indo-Pacific as its main front? An increasingly American NATO, given that the US has now turned its attention mainly to China?
What is certain is that we are witnessing an Alliance that is changing its political objectives, placing Europe and its defence even further on the sidelines. A Europe that seems incapable of determining its own autonomous line.
Many do not understand how an Alliance born out of European problems should now return to militarily containing a power like China, which is omnipresent from a commercial point of view.
Unfortunately, Europe does not dare to make its reasons heard. At a time when it is having difficulty finding the resources necessary to strengthen its defence.
And Donald Trump is coming to the White House, in all likelihood, like the swords of Damocles. A Trump who has never had any sympathy for the EU.
Let us then see what position Europe will take, which until now has positioned itself uncritically alongside Washington.