Excerpts from The Global Times. An aggressive military bloc with thirty full members and forty partners on all inhabited continents which has waged unprovoked wars on three of them is evidently no problem to China, Russia, the United Nations, etc. Just business as usual.

US-France tussle over AUKUS upsetting NATO, Europe
By Cui Hongjian
The author is director of the Department of European Studies, China Institute of International Studies.

NATO now has many internal problems that need to be addressed, and the relationship between Europe and the US is still in a process of repair in a post-Trump world. This latest US-France dispute adds up to already delicate transatlantic relations. If the differences cannot be managed, there is concern that this distrust will eventually deepen and spread to other areas.

If the US is smart enough, it will try to control the rift, making it an issue simply between the US and France, not between the US and Europe or within NATO. This dispute should also be left to the Indo-Pacific strategy, not in other areas. To be more specific, if Washington is willing to take some losses and compensate Paris, then the damage might be controlled. Otherwise, it will certainly damage the mutual trust between the US and its European allies, as well as the unity within NATO.