NATO foreign ministers are in Bucharest on Wednesday on the last day of a two-day meeting to discuss the Western military alliance's stance towards China.
Talks are to address the NATO's recent decision at a leaders' summit in Madrid to classify China as a "challenge" to the alliances "interests, security and values."
What this challenge looks like is now to be debated further among NATO foreign ministers.
Romania's foreign minister Bogdan-Lucian Aurescu said NATO is to look at "consolidating resilience within the alliance" in relation to China on his arrival to the meeting.
"Strong action" from China is also important to push Russia towards a peace agreement in Ukraine, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on the first day of the meeting that the Ukraine war had showed the dangererous dependence on Russia gas which had developed among some alliance members.
The top NATO official said the alliance should now take the opportunity to review dependencies on other authoritarian states such as China, giving rare earth metal supplies as an example.
NATO is to also discuss the threat posed by Moscow to the alliance's vulnerable partners, Moldova, Georgia and Bosnia and Herzegovina in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
NATO is to speak with the foreign ministers of each country about "how to strengthen the resilience of our vulnerable partners in the face of this aggression," Bujar Osmani, North Macedonia's foreign minister said.
Moldova also requires energy support, Norway's foreign minister Anniken Huitfeldt said. The country, bordering Ukraine, has suffered blackouts as a result of Russian missile strikes on Ukraine's energy infrastructure.
