NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Monday there is no new Cold War with China but the western allies will have to adapt to the challenge of Beijing's rise.
"We're not entering a new Cold War and China is not our adversary, not our enemy," Stoltenberg told reporters after a NATO leaders' summit.
"But we need to address together, as the alliance, the challenges that the rise of China poses to our security."
NATO leaders are expected on Monday to brand China as a security risk to the Western alliance for the first time, a day after the Group of Seven issued a statement on human rights and Taiwan that Beijing said slandered its reputation.
G7 leaders, meeting in Britain over the weekend, scolded China over human rights in its Xinjiang region, called for Hong Kong to keep a high degree of autonomy and demanded a full and thorough investigation of the origins of the coronavirus in China.
China's embassy in London said it was resolutely opposed to mentions of Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Taiwan that it said distorted the facts and exposed the "sinister intentions of a few countries such as the United States".
"China's reputation must not be slandered," the embassy said on Monday.
