China is conducting military drills with Belarus on NATO’s eastern border this week, a sign of growing tensions between Beijing and the US-led defence alliance.
The joint “counterterrorism” drills on the soil of Russian ally Belarus, near the Polish border, come as NATO leaders gather for a summit in Washington, with the war in nearby Ukraine high on their agenda.
With relations deteriorating between NATO on the one hand and China and Russia on the other, analysts believe that by scheduling the exercises, Beijing wanted to send a warning message to the alliance.
Sino-Belarusian exercises have taken place before, but this is the first since Russia invaded neighboring Ukraine, a NATO ally, in February 2022.
According to a statement issued by the Chinese Defence Ministry on Wednesday, the exercise began on July 8 in the city of Brest, which borders Poland.
The statement said the exercise would continue until mid-July but did not give the exact number of Chinese troops involved.
The statement said the two sides were working to “improve combat techniques and deepen cooperation and communication between the two militaries.”
Chinese diplomatic officials stressed that the exercise was “not directed against any particular country”.
But Poland’s Defence Ministry criticised the timing of the exercises.
It warns that “this campaign could be used to spread misinformation and disinformation… coinciding with the NATO summit.”
Though the exercise is small, it still sees China deploying troops on NATO’s doorstep and in a country that Russia is using as a launchpad for its invasion of Ukraine.
This exercise is taking place at a time when relations between Beijing, one of Moscow’s key partners, and NATO are also becoming increasingly tense.
Strategic Signals
Analysts believe the date and location of the exercise were not chosen by chance, but argue that China wanted to send a message to NATO.
“Multilateral exercises are often used to send political signals,” Kelly Grieco of the Stimson Center foreign policy and defense think tank told AFP.
Indeed, he argues that when it comes to military exercises, “it’s more about political signaling than it is about practice.”
He said China had conducted counter-terrorism exercises in Belarus four times between 2011 and 2018 but had not done so since then.
He said the fact that the event is taking place so close to the border is “part of the signaling.”
Alice Ekman, senior analyst for Asia at the European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS), said countries often hold joint exercises to coincide with developments abroad — including in China.
“In April 2023, China will conduct exercises with Russia in the East China Sea, close to the Japanese islands, on the eve of the trilateral US-Japan-South Korea summit, to signal its opposition to such a summit,” Ekman told AFP.
Similarly, he said, China conducted military exercises in the South China Sea in May 2024, while the US-Japan-Philippines-Australia meeting was in full swing.
As it moves closer to Russia, China is also becoming hostile towards NATO.
It accuses NATO of trying to contain China at Washington’s behest, and Beijing is concerned about the alliance’s growing role in the Asia-Pacific region.
Furthermore, China never forgave the bombing of its embassy in Belgrade by NATO aircraft in 1999.
It also believes that the coalition has already overstepped its geographical sphere of influence in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan.
Ackman said China views NATO as “clearly hostile for historical reasons.”
But he added that these reasons are “increasingly strategic, as the threat from China becomes an integral part of the organization’s strategic thinking.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
