The United States announced its new defense strategy during the Swedish Prime Minister’s visit to Finland, in which China is seen as the biggest threat to NATO, ‘s NATO special reporter Mika Hentunen estimates.
28.10. 17:55•Updated 28.10. 18:21
Prime Minister of Sweden Ulf Kristersson had a soft landing in his international role. Kristersson’s first foreign visit was Helsinki, where the prime minister Sanna Marin (sd.) incensed the sustainability of Nordic cooperation.
Finland and Sweden will join NATO only hand in hand, the prime ministers assured.
A more difficult tick on Kristersson’s route will come up in the near future.
According to Turkish media reports, Kristersson will meet the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan November 8 in Ankara. The Swedes confirm the travel plans, but not yet the date.
The issues that are being negotiated with Turkey are common to Finland and Sweden, but there seem to be more problems with Sweden. Turkey has demanded the extradition of dozens of Kurds from Sweden, which the country’s courts do not agree to.
At the press conference, Kristersson continued his predecessor Magdalena Andersson conciliatory rhetoric that Turkey has legitimate concerns and demands related to terrorism.
Kristersson hoped that an agreement could still be found so that Turkey would finally ratify Finland and Sweden as NATO members. At the same time. He did not dare to guess the time.
There are no disagreements with Hungary related to NATO membership.
Unless the country’s capricious prime minister Viktor Orbán start evening milking, Hungary will ratify the memberships in the next few weeks (you will switch to another service).
The negotiations with Turkey, which remains last, may continue for a long time. At least at the moment, Turkey seems like a precipice.
At the same time, the United States reminds that Finland and Sweden are not in NATO’s sprint orienteering race, but that there are even more difficult tasks ahead.
The United States announced on Thursday your new defense strategy (you switch to another service). It is noteworthy that Russia is mentioned in the text only in passing. Instead, China is featured so many times that the strategy could be characterized as a China paper.
China is Joe Biden in the administration’s view, the greatest security threat to the United States and its allies against which deterrence must be increased. NATO recorded this as approved at the Madrid summit in June to the strategy of the military alliance (you move to another service)under US pressure.
The Biden administration defines China’s threat as multifaceted.
In addition to the military, it means an economic and cultural threat to Western countries. Biden, who is otherwise known as a globalist, is an unequivocally harsh Cold War cartridge for China, whose only goal is to beat this enemy.
Biden does not want to go down in history as the president who lost the battle of the century for domination to the Chinese.
For Europeans, China is a more difficult tick. Chancellor of Germany Olaf Scholz freaked out last week when he stood up in the aftermath of the Nordstream gas pipeline explosion Chinese investment in the port of their hometown Hamburg (you switch to another service).
Germany, Europe’s largest economy, is dependent on foreign trade and thus on China.
The United States has been able to afford a trade war with China because only 20 percent of its GDP comes from exports. In Germany, that figure is 70 percent.
Russia can destabilize Germany with its natural gas. At least China is capable of the same, which the automotive industry and Germany’s other most important industries need to survive.
China is also very important to Finland and Sweden. We wouldn’t have zippers on our pants without them, let alone semiconductors and many other components.
Volvo is Chinese-owned and Sweden’s largest companies are in the Chinese market, where Nokia, Vaisala, Kone Cranes and numerous other Finnish companies are.
Since the 1990s, Finland has been building a special trade-driven relationship with China.
It is no longer possible. According to the drafters of the US defense strategy, it won’t be for decades to come, if ever.
The US is demanding that NATO countries choose sides, which means an anti-China front.
China is not going to lose the battle for domination of the century and does not take kindly to the NATO membership of Finland and Sweden.
Story edited on 28.10. 18:20: Corrected Viktor Orbán’s title from president to prime minister.