By Ole Øyvind Holth

https://klassekampen.no/utgave/2021-06-12/advarer-mot-a-hoppe-etter-usa

(English translation below)

"It would be a terrible mistake for Europe to be led by this militarized society," the renowned economist Jeffrey Sachs told us by telephone from New York in the United States.

And it is precisely his home country of the United States that he refers to when he warns the European countries against following the United States in a fierce line of confrontation with China.

Sachs has a solid basis for speaking out. He is a professor at Columbia University, former head of the UN Millennium Development Goals and special adviser to the UN Secretary-General, and he has appeared several times on the Times magazine's list of the world's most influential people.

Now he warns of the consequences if NATO chooses to "reinvent itself as an American-led war machine aimed at China", or at all to be controlled by the priorities of American politicians who he says "know nothing" about China.

Heads of state from all NATO countries will meet on Monday in the Belgian capital Brussels. On the agenda is, among other things, the Defense Alliance's new reform project "NATO 2030".

The alliance is at a crossroads. It is almost two years since French President Emmanuel Macron, after Turkey invaded northern Syria in 2019, exclaimed that "NATO is acting brain dead".

Following this, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg appointed a strategy group to prepare a plan for how NATO could become a more effective and future-oriented alliance.

The reform, which was first presented last autumn, is full of contemporary words such as cyber defense and climate awareness, but marks first and foremost a turning point because so much of the alliance's attention is now to be directed at China.

Most recently last weekend, Stoltenberg stated that "almost all the proposals in 'NATO 2030' are relevant to how NATO can meet China's emergence", in an interview published on NATO's own website.

The increased focus on China follows an increasingly clear development in American politics, where China across the political parties is seen as an enemy and a threat to US interests.

- I know my own country, and it is a totally unstable country right now. It is difficult to understand, but all politicians are ignorant, narrow-minded and biased, and China looms in their consciousness as a threat to American hegemony. But the United States should not have ideas of hegemony right now. They should not see themselves as the leader of the free world. They must focus on saving their own democracy before trying to lead someone else, says Sachs.

Relations with China were an important topic in last year's American election campaign, where Trump and Biden competed over who could have been "toughest" against the rival in the east.

Sachs believes that "the United States owes a great apology for having chosen a psychopathic leader for the whole world", but is not very optimistic about foreign policy under Joe Biden.

- Biden is a gentleman. A rational person and a good person. I have known him for a long time and like him. The people he has around him are many of the same ones we had during the Obama administration. What they stood for at the time was a mixture of wise and foresighted measures such as the nuclear deal with Iran, and on the other hand catastrophic decisions such as the invasion of Syria and the bombing of Libya and the drone war… everywhere. It is these people who are now back. On the one hand, they are more inclined to cooperation and multilateralism, and on the other hand, they have a history of leading us into trouble, says Sachs.

He believes that the line they have taken towards China in particular has been worrying, because there has been no desire to establish dialogue or establish contact at all.

- Every word has been negative from day one. This is not the way to build a relationship. It's a pure question of manners. You need to start with some polite phrases to build a constructive relationship, but they do not. Every word they say is an insult, Sachs says.

When NATO's reform plan was first presented at a meeting in London in December, Stoltenberg provided a kind of explanation for the idea behind the choice of route.

"This is not about moving NATO into the South China Sea, but it is about taking into account that China is getting closer to us, in the Arctic, in Africa, by investing in infrastructure in Europe, and in cyberspace." , he said according to an article in the Atlantic Council.

At a news conference after visiting Joe Biden at the White House on Monday to prepare for the NATO summit, Stoltenberg emphasized the following description of China: "They do not share our values."

Sachs emphasizes that he has not read the strategy document that forms the basis for the proposals to be adopted this week, but that he is based on the rhetoric American politicians have used against China in recent years.

- China is not a threat to the world or to NATO. This policy of crushing companies and cutting access to technology is mismanaged, dangerous and built on ignorance. It would be extraordinarily unwise for Europe to allow itself to be used in an American-led confrontation with China, he says.

The meeting is taking place at the same time as NATO is at full speed out of Afghanistan, a war that has long been an important part of the Alliance's raison d'être.

Sachs refers back to NATO's invitation of Georgia and Ukraine in 2008, which was followed by wars in both places. He now fears that a "totally unnecessary" shift towards treating China as a security threat could also become a "self-fulfilling prophecy" that could actually make China more aggressive, and ultimately threaten all world peace.

- We can be on course towards the edge of the abyss over Taiwan. It stares us straight in the face. Are we crazy? What are we thinking about? he asks.

He therefore hopes that the countries of Europe, which have more experience with the consequences of war in modern times and a different geographical location, will reconsider and pull the brakes on a too one-sided focus on China as a threat.

- Ask your readers: How many wars has the United States started in recent years? How many military bases do they have outside their own immediate neighborhood? How many covert operations have they carried out, and how much misinformation has the CIA spread? And then you do the same calculation for China, says Sachs.