34. Underlines the importance of the EU remaining attentive to China’s changing role and growing global influence in multilateral organisations, including the UN, to which China is the second biggest financial contributor, and to ensure better coordination among the Member States and like-minded partners towards combining the strength of global liberal democracies, in order to respond to this development; notes that the Chinese Government’s greater engagement with international and multilateral institutions, such as the UN, the World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Health Organization (WHO), Interpol, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the International Telecommunication Union and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), including standard-setting bodies, aims to reshape norms, standard and practices globally in order to foster China’s long-term geopolitical strategy and economic interests; regrets that Chinese domestic censorship, now being exercised, inter alia, at the UN, aims to manipulate procedures to minimise scrutiny of China’s conduct, in particular in the case of the situation of ethnic Uyghur Muslims and other Turkic Muslim minorities; calls for the EU to work with like-minded partners to counter these developments; 35. Stresses that China is the largest provider of peacekeepers among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, but has refused to adopt sections of Chapter VII of the UN Charter and the pillar of Responsibility to Protect (R2P); underlines that the EU has integrated R2P into its external action; 36. Calls for stronger EU cooperation with NATO on Chinese security challenges; supports NATO’s proposal to develop a political strategy for approaching a world in which China will be a global superpower; requests that this strategy be based on different scenarios for the development of relations with China, including the possibility of the further deterioration of security in the South China Sea, and calls for dialogue and coordination with the countries of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue; welcomes NATO’s efforts to carefully monitor the security implications of China’s increased physical presence in the Arctic, as well as in Africa; recommends that EU-NATO cooperation on security challenges related to China be sufficiently taken into account while elaborating the EU Strategic Compass and reviewing the NATO Strategic Concept; 37. Welcomes the Council’s intention to reinforce the EU’s strategic focus, presence and action in the Indo-Pacific by launching a new EU strategy for cooperation in the IndoPacific, as well as a new strategy for connectivity; notes that any such new strategy should be in conformity with the EU-China strategy; 38. Deems it pertinent for the Commission to provide timely and comprehensive reports on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) – the world’s largest free trade agreement – in order to assess developments on the ground; is particularly interested in the implications for the EU’s strategic interests of matters such as standardsetting in the Asia-Pacific as well as provisions on rules of origin; notes that while the EU is not a party to RCEP, the agreement will have implications for the EU; highlights the absence of provisions in RCEP on trade and sustainability, including labour and social standards and climate and environmental objectives; 39. Recalls, in the context of the regional dynamics, the importance of trade and economic relations between the EU and Taiwan, including on matters relating to multilateralism and the WTO, technology and public health, as well as essential cooperation on critical