China doesn’t share NATO’s values

An international gathering of youth is usually taken as an opportunity to promote exchanges and mutual understanding. At the NATO Youth SummitNATO Youth Summit last month, this was not the case.

Instead, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg tried to foment prejudice and hatred, claiming that China represents a major security challenge that NATO youth should be alert to.

He urged the organization to have the so-called China threats reflected in its new Strategic Concept, cautioning that China's rise will have consequences for the pact's security as China doesn't share our values A non sequitur for sure.

The logic is utterly absurd. If NATO thinks a country does not share its values, then it must be a threat.

That is before any consideration of what NATO's values might be, given its 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia and its interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria over the past 20 years.

Since these actions seem characteristic of the transatlantic security alliance, it is not just China that doesn't share NATO's values. Many of its members are some of the richest countries in the world, so it doesn't necessarily endow the organization or its members with the privilege to ignore the norms governing international relations.

The conflict in Ukraine revealed that NATO is not a defensive pact, but an aggressive bloc that seeks to expand the West's hegemonic interests under the pretext of defending values and rules This expansionism on ideological lines was highlighted by Stoltenberg, who said that NATO will make the process as quick as possible for Finland and Sweden whose parliaments decide by the end of the month whether to join the pact.

The fact that the last two non-aligned Nordic countries are about to be incorporated into the bloc, which did not happen at the height of the Cold War, shows that Stoltenberg's warnings should not be taken at face value.

It is the expansionist and divisive mindset of the bloc that deserves the vigilance of the youth, as their future won't be decided by the threats Stoltenberg peddles but the threats stemming from the values he urged to uphold.

Even though the organization has the obligation to cultivate a lasting and balanced security mechanism in Europe, it pretends to pursue that objective while fuelling an arms race and engaging in brinkmanship.

The youth of NATO should reject the value judgement that Stoltenberg and the bloc are trying to sell them, because it is outdated and dangerously unsound.