NATO leader Jens Stoltenberg on Tuesday urged China to consider Ukraine’s terms for peace with Russia as the Chinese president meets with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
Putin told Xi he was open to discussing a 12-point position paper presented by Beijing on the conflict, which includes a call for dialogue and respect for the territorial sovereignty of all countries.
“It is for Ukraine to decide what are the acceptable conditions for a peaceful solution,” Stoltenberg said at a news conference, noting China’s failure to condemn the Russian invasion.
“China therefore needs to understand Ukraine’s perspective and contact President (Volodymyr) Zelensky directly if it wants to take peace seriously,” he added.
The leader of the military alliance said he is ready to welcome any proposal that could lead to a “just and lasting peace” and admitted that the document presented by China contains a number of positive elements, namely an emphasis on nuclear safety, protection of citizens and territorial security. but warned that any ceasefire that does not respect Ukraine’s sovereignty “will only be a way to freeze the war and ensure that Russia can recover, regroup and strike again”.
Stoltenberg stressed that he has no evidence that China is supplying arms to Russia, but revealed that there were “some signs” that Russia had asked China for arms and that the “issue is being considered in Beijing”. “Our message is that China should not provide deadly aid to Russia,” he added.
Stoltenberg warns that allies are not increasing defense spending
The NATO leader warned on Tuesday that allies were not increasing defense spending fast enough in the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
After Russia took the Crimea peninsula in 2014, NATO’s 30 members pledged to increase spending to 2% of their gross domestic product (GDP) by 2024, but the alliance’s annual report showed that only seven (Greece, United States, Lithuania, Poland, United Kingdom, Estonia and Latvia) reached this level in 2022.
In 2020, eleven countries reached this target, in 2021 only eight.
“Many allies have announced significant increases in defense spending since the invasion of Russia. Now those commitments need to be translated into real money, contracts and concrete equipment, because defense spending underpins everything we do,” he said at a news conference.
Jens Stoltenberg attributed the drop in the number of countries that kept their promises to the fact that the economies of several allies performed better than expected, making their defense budgets appear proportionally lower.
The United States spends by far the most money on defense, with investment accounting for 70% of all NATO spending, exceeding $1 billion last year. Washington has pressured its European allies to spend more money on the military.
Overhead costs for European and Canadian members will increase by 2.2% in 2022, an increase that translates to $350 billion over the past eight years.
“Since 2014, allies have increased their defense spending and we are moving in the right direction. But we are not moving as fast as the dangerous world we live in demands,” Stoltenberg said.
“So while I appreciate all the progress that has been made, it is clear that we need to do more and do it faster,” he added.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has prompted some allies to spend billions more on their armed forces.
The alliance is now seeking a new spending target at its July meeting in Vilnius, Ukraine, with most allies agreeing that 2% should become a “floor and not a ceiling” for national spending. However, some countries struggling to reach this level have been reluctant to make the goal too ambitious or too concrete.
“In this new and more competitive world, we should not underestimate our security. It is our security that underpins our prosperity and our way of life,” added Stoltenberg.
Source: DN
