NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has said that the Western alliance must respond to China's economic, political and military rise and that a final NATO summit statement will cement a new strategy towards Beijing.

Axar.az reports citing foreign media that the statement came from the NATO Secretary-General before leaders began arriving for the summit.

"China is coming closer to us. We see them in cyberspace, we see China in Africa, but we also see China investing heavily in our own critical infrastructure," he told reporters at NATO headquarters.

"We're not entering a new Cold War and China is not our adversary, not our enemy," Stoltenberg told reports after a NATO leaders' summit.

"But we need to address together, as the alliance, the challenges that the rise of China poses to our security."