China, Belarus Hold Army Drills Near NATO Border Amid Rising Tensions

Warsaw: China is staging army drills with Belarus this week at NATO’s eastern border, in a sign of escalating tensions between Beijing and the US-led defence alliance.The joint “antiterrorist” exercises on Russian ally Belarus’s soil near the Polish border come as NATO leaders gather for a summit in Washington, with the war in nearby Ukraine high on their agenda.With relations between NATO on the one hand and China and Russia on the other at a low ebb, analysts believe that Beijing wanted to send the alliance a warning message with the timing of the drills.Sino-Belarusian exercises have taken place before, but this is the first time since Russia invaded neighbouring Ukraine, a NATO ally, in February 2022.The exercises began July 8 in Brest, a city right on the border with Poland, according to a statement issued on Wednesday by the Chinese defence ministry.