BEIJING, July 10. /TASS/. As the North Atlantic Alliance has been making discord, the bloc is brittle deep inside, the Global Times wrote.

"While the US and Western leaders gathered in Washington to mark NATO's 75th anniversary on Tuesday, their efforts to showcase `strength’ and `unity’ are being overshadowed by increasing internal divisions on global issues, challenges in supporting Ukraine, uncertainties stemming from the upcoming US presidential election, and the rise of right-wing nationalism across Europe," the newspaper reported. All this makes analysts view the NATO summit currently underway in Washington as "outwardly tough but inwardly brittle," it added.

According to the Chinese newspaper, the recent hype over "the China threat" by Western media in the run up to the NATO summit and accusations of China supporting Russia "once again reveal the US' and NATO's intentions to extend their influence into the Asia-Pacific region for geopolitical gain." "It underscores NATO’s origins in the Cold War era, designed as a military tool to bolster US hegemony, which critics said only exacerbates global instability and discord," the Global Times staff reporters argued.

"The NATO summit aims to project `unity’ and `shared interests’ outwardly, but internally, there are increasing anxieties and worries among member countries," the Global Times quoted Cui Hongjian, a professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University's Academy of Regional and Global Governance, as saying on Tuesday. The rise of far-right forces in Europe, political challenges facing Germany and France and other key European countries, and the possible return of Donald Trump to the White House have all added uncertainties within NATO to reach consensus on major issues, the expert said.

Another Chinese expert, Sun Chenghao, a fellow and head of the US-EU program at the Center for International Security and Strategy in Tsinghua University, maintained that the United States and NATO "have escalated accusations against China for allegedly supporting Russia, aiming to emphasize the perceived link between security in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region."