China, Belarus Conduct Military Drills Near NATO Border Amid Rising Tensions

Photo : AFP

China and Belarus Conduct Military Drills Near NATO's Eastern Border Amid Escalating Tensions Warsaw: China is staging military drills with Belarus this week at  NATO's eastern border, signaling escalating tensions between Beijing and the US-led defense alliance. The joint "antiterrorist" exercises are taking place on Belarusian soil near the Polish border as NATO leaders gather for a summit in Washington, with the Ukraine war high on their agenda.

Relations between NATO and the China-Russia axis are at a low point. Analysts suggest that Beijing aims to send a warning to the alliance with the timing of these drills. While Sino-Belarusian exercises have occurred before, this is the first instance since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a NATO ally, in February 2022.

The exercises commenced on July 8 in Brest, a city right on the Polish border, according to a Chinese defense ministry statement released on Wednesday. The statement indicated that the maneuvers would continue until mid-July, but did not specify the number of Chinese soldiers involved. It emphasized that both sides aim to "improve combat techniques and deepen cooperation and communication between the two armies."

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Chinese diplomatic officials maintained that the exercises were "not aimed at any country in particular." However, Poland's defense ministry criticized the timing of the drills, warning of "the risk of the operations being used for disinformation and propaganda purposes... to coincide with the NATO summit." Despite their small scale, the exercises involve China deploying troops close to NATO territory and to a country Russia used as a launchpad for its Ukraine invasion.

Beijing, a key partner of Moscow, is experiencing increasingly tense relations with NATO. Analysts believe the date and location of the exercises were deliberately chosen to send a message to NATO. Kelly Grieco from the Stimson Center foreign policy and defense think tank told AFP, "Multilateral exercises are often used to send political signals," emphasizing that such drills are "much more about political signal than the exercise itself."

China had conducted anti-terrorism exercises in Belarus four times between 2011 and 2018 but had not done so since. The proximity of these drills to the border is also seen as part of the signaling. Countries often align their joint exercises with international developments, particularly China. For instance, in April 2023, China conducted exercises with Russia in the East China Sea, close to Japanese islands, ahead of a US-Japan-South Korea summit to signal opposition to the summit. Similarly, China held military maneuvers in the South China Sea in May 2024 during a US-Japan-Philippines-Australia meeting.

China's growing hostility towards NATO is evident. It accuses NATO of attempting to contain China at Washington's behest and is concerned about NATO's expanding role in the Asia-Pacific region. Historical grievances, such as the bombing of its embassy in Belgrade by a NATO plane in 1999, also fuel China's antagonism. Additionally, China believes NATO has overstepped its geographical sphere of influence in Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan.

According to Alice Ekman, a senior analyst for Asia at the European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS), NATO is perceived by China as "clearly hostile for historical reasons," with these reasons becoming "increasingly strategic as the threat from China becomes an integral part of the organization's strategic thinking.