US-China Trade War shifts to NATO Summit

The 31st summit of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) will be held on 3-4 December in London.

Though originally an inter-governmental military alliance, the NATO summit going to be held in London is likely to be converted into a trade-platform. The US is all set to use it as another platform against China and take up the trade related issues including dragons’ dominance in 5 G telecommunications.

However, the US has asked the member nations not to use Chinese technology major Huawei Technologies’ equipments, any trade related decision from NATO will require to take Turkey on board. As Turkey has its own interest in Syria and also in need of support from a major economy. There has been news of Turkey cosign up with China to work out a deal to support its military operations in Syria against the Kurds. China, in return, is demanding Turkey’s cooperation on its military operation against Muslims in Xinjiang.   

There is another dimension to this issue – the recent spate between Turkey and France on former’s military operations in Syria. France has been opposing the Turkey’s military operations in Syria with a demand to revisit the role of NATO forces. The French President Emmanuel Macron went on to say ‘NATO is dead’. In response to the statement, his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan on November 29 asked him to check if he was ‘brain dead’. 

Meanwhile, the joy in the Wall Street market on possible trade deal between US and China has died down. The indexes of the market on Friday slipped due to increased tension between the two warrying economies caused by recent round of spates on Hong Kong.