NATO leaders have warned that China presents "systemic challenges", taking a forceful stance towards Beijing in a communique at Joe Biden's first summit with an alliance that Donald Trump openly disparaged.
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The new US president has urged his fellow NATO leaders to stand up to China's authoritarianism and growing military might, a change of focus for an alliance created to defend Europe from the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
The language in the summit's final communique came a day after the Group of Seven (G7) rich nations issued a statement on human rights in China and Taiwan that Beijing said slandered its reputation.
"China's stated ambitions and assertive behaviour present systemic challenges to the rules-based international order and to areas relevant to alliance security," NATO leaders said in the communique.
Biden also told European allies the alliance's mutual defence pact was a "sacred obligation" for the United States - a marked shift in tone from his predecessor, Trump, who had threatened to withdraw from the alliance and accused Europeans of contributing too little to their own defence.
"I want all Europe to know that the United States is there," Biden said on Monday. "NATO is critically important to us."
Biden stopped at NATO headquarters' memorial to the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States by al-Qaeda militants, when NATO triggered its Article 5 for the first and only time. Under the article, the alliance treats an attack on one member state as being an attack on all.
Later at a news conference, Biden, who will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday in Geneva, said China and Russia were trying to split the trans-Atlantic alliance and, while he was not seeking conflict with Russia, NATO would respond if Moscow "continued its harmful activities".
He also pledged to support Ukraine in its conflict with Moscow. "We are going to put Ukraine in a position that they will be able to maintain their physical security," Biden said, without giving more details.
While there are still differences in strategies on how to deal with China across the West, Biden said NATO was united under US leadership. "America is back," he said, seeking to reassure Europeans that a Trump-like populist would not be back in the White House in four years.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, at her last NATO summit before she steps down in September, said it was important to keep China's potential threat in perspective.
"If you look at the cyber threats and the hybrid threats, if you look at the co-operation between Russia and China, you cannot simply ignore China," Merkel told reporters. "But one must not overrate it, either - we need to find the right balance."
At NATO headquarters in Brussels, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said China's growing military presence from the Baltics to Africa meant nuclear-armed NATO had to be prepared.
"China is coming closer to us. We see them in cyberspace, we see China in Africa, but we also see China investing heavily in our own critical infrastructure," he said.
Stoltenberg also said the leaders had agreed to increase their contributions to the alliance's common budget.
G7 nations meeting in Britain at the weekend scolded China over human rights in its Xinjiang region, called for Hong Kong to keep a high degree of autonomy and demanded a full investigation of the origins of the coronavirus in China.
China's London embassy said it was resolutely opposed to mentions of Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Taiwan, which it said distorted the facts and exposed the "sinister intentions of a few countries such as the United States".
"China's reputation must not be slandered," the embassy said.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said there were risks and rewards with Beijing. "I don't think anybody around the table wants to descend into a new Cold War with China," he said.
Australian Associated Press