China is gaining the capability to pose a critical threat to NATO, U.S. officials warned on the eve of an alliance summit in Washington.

“NATO is now assessing what China is doing,” Kay Bailey Hutchison, the U.S. ambassador to NATO, told reporters Tuesday evening in Washington. "We are assessing risk. We’re much more active in doing so with China.”

The results of that assessment could presage a new eastern focus for a security bloc that formed in 1949 with the goal of deterring the Soviet Union aggression against European and North American powers. But Chinese espionage and economic influence could undermine NATO in a variety of ways, U.S. officials worry.

“It’s critical from the United States' view ... that we maintain secure, reliable information and transportation and other infrastructure networks in Europe and in the United States so that we have the ability to respond in a crisis without any concerns about threats posed by Chinese influence over this infrastructure,” a senior State Department official who was not authorized to speak publicly told reporters Tuesday.

Those threats appear in traditional military forms, such as China’s growing naval capabilities, and the cybersecurity alarms unique to the 21st century. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has launched a high-profile effort to discourage European allies from partnering with Chinese tech giants such as Huawei, which are pioneering the next generation of wireless technology.

“So if a country is investing in the 5G infrastructure that could interrupt our NATO communications or, again, have our NATO communications be distorted or disrupted, that is a very serious issue for NATO,” Hutchison said.

Those comments amplify a warning issued by a bipartisan group of senators, who introduced a resolution last week discouraging NATO allies from striking economic bargains with China’s telecommunications giants, which Western officials regard as being under the thumb of Communist spy services.

China is also using unconventional tactics to gain conventional naval strength. Italy agreed to join China’s vaunted Belt and Road Initiative, an infrastructure investment plan that U.S. officials regard as a “predatory” strategy to purchase political influence and even sovereignty in strategically significant areas. International port access is expected to help Beijing, which is modernizing its navy to be capable of operating around the world, project military power far from Chinese shores, to the doorsteps of the United States.

“China is buying rights into seaports in Italy as well as in other parts of the world,” Hutchison said. “So we’re looking at the risk.”