Sec-Gen: Russia-China Arctic Co-op A Challenge To Interests Of Alliance

Speaking to Al Jazeera, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg states that cooperation between Russia and China in the Arctic circle is a 'challenge to the interests of the alliance'.

• The Svalbard archipelago is viewed as a major Achilles heel for NATO in the Arctic. The islands are a part of Norway, but due to a 1920 treaty that demilitarised the islands and allowed joint exploitation of resources by all signatories, it is home to Russian settlements and mining operations.
• China has also established a presence on Svalbard's largest island Spitsbergen, at the Institute of Polar Research. In recent years Beijing has sought to project China as a 'near-Arctic' state. Despite initial reservations about observer membership of the Arctic Council, Russia has stated that China is now its 'priority partner' in the Russian Arctic.
• With NATO having become a much more united and forceful organisation since the Russian invasion of Ukraine galvanised a previously drifting military alliance, there is an increased focus in Brussels and Washington, D.C. not to just to support Ukraine's resistance but counter Russian activity elsewhere in the West.
• Increasing cooperation between Beijing and Moscow in a strategically vulnerable region for the West could, for the first time, put NATO in direct opposition to China, with the alliance previously keeping its area of operation solely focused in Europe.