BRUSSELS — NATO leaders on Monday agreed to pivot their alliance to a more confrontational stance toward China, a landmark shift as President Biden sought to boost and reorient the organization after the eruptions and conflict that marked the Trump era.
Biden, in public comments and private meetings at the midway point of his first overseas trip as president, worked to reassure dubious allies that America is back and to rally like-minded democracies in what he repeatedly cast as an existential battle against the world’s autocracies.
Monday’s discussion was a sharp expansion of NATO’s efforts to confront Beijing after years when China was outside the focus of the defensive alliance. The allies agreed in their closing communique that “China’s stated ambitions and assertive behavior present systemic challenges to the rules-based international order.” Continue reading.