International Observation: NATO's "Eastward Expansion into the Asia Pacific" Disrupts Regional Peace and Stability Vilnius | Capital | NATO
NATO recently held a summit in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius. Under the manipulation of the United States, NATO continues to view regional and international hot issues through the outdated Cold War thinking prism, continues to promote NATO's "Indo Pacific" process, incites opposition between factions, and casts heavy shadows on peace and stability in the Asia Pacific region.
NATO's eastward expansion into the Asia Pacific region is a crucial part of the United States' implementation of the Indo Pacific strategy. This summit, following last year's Madrid summit, invited leaders from Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand for the second time to participate in the so-called "NATO+4" meeting, reflecting the United States' gradual development of NATO as one of the institutionalized platforms for implementing the US Indo Pacific strategy, highlighting the US manipulation of NATO to accelerate its strategic layout of "eastward entry into the Asia Pacific" and NATO's "Indo Pacific". After completing the basic construction of the "Okus", "US Japan India Australia Quadrilateral Mechanism" and other small multilateral systems in the Asia Pacific region, the Biden administration is intensifying efforts to mobilize European allies to shift strategic focus to the "Indo Pacific" through NATO, deeply binding European and Asian allies, and jointly sharing costs and reducing pressure for the United States to implement the "Indo Pacific Strategy" to contain and contain China. Since last year, NATO has significantly increased its security cooperation with Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand, and has carried out closer cooperation in areas such as cybersecurity, maritime security, emerging technologies, cybersecurity, and climate change through a "tailored" partnership plan, with a stronger emphasis on China.
NATO's eastward expansion into the Asia Pacific region will bring endless troubles. As a product of the Cold War, NATO continued to exist more than 30 years after the end of the Cold War. In essence, it continued to survive by constantly making enemies and creating confrontation. Not only could it not bring sustainable security, but it also caused countless wars and suffering in Europe and the world. Looking at the history of NATO after the Cold War, a basic pattern can be found: the more NATO expands, the less secure Europe becomes, and the more unstable the world becomes, as evidenced by the Ukrainian crisis. It can be expected that NATO's "eastward expansion into the Asia Pacific" will continue its consistent characteristics of war and chaos, stirring up more conflicts and military conflicts within the Asia Pacific region, creating greater animosity and differences, and bringing more complex and uncertain factors to the global economic recovery process.
NATO's eastward expansion into the Asia Pacific region disrupts regional order. After the end of the Cold War, despite the thorny issues of the North Korean nuclear issue and the South China Sea, there has never been a large-scale armed conflict or a refugee crisis in East Asia. The root cause of long-term peace in East Asia lies in countries abandoning the Cold War era of camp opposition and zero sum thinking, adhering to the concept of openness and inclusiveness, and promoting a regional security order based on deep interdependence and regional integration. NATO's "eastward expansion into the Asia Pacific" precisely aims to dissolve the key architecture and positive factors of regional peace and stability, shake the foundation of regional order, and provide more opportunities and greater space for its involvement in the Asia Pacific region. NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg wrote an article claiming that "today in Europe is tomorrow in Asia", completely ignoring the fact that the security order in the Asia Europe region is based on two different concepts and mechanisms, attempting to conceal NATO's strategic plan to subvert the existing order in the Asia Pacific region.
As the Ukrainian crisis becomes increasingly prolonged, NATO's approach of building a sense of security through eastward expansion and military aggression is becoming increasingly unpopular. Further promotion of "eastward expansion into the Asia Pacific" will further expose its strategic ambitions and will inevitably face strong resistance from countries in the global southern camp. Faced with the increasingly complex regional and international situation, countries in the Asia Pacific region should see clearly the true purpose and negative impact of NATO's "eastward expansion into the Asia Pacific", be more conscious of maintaining regional peace and stability, always maintain strategic autonomy, and never let the region become a arena for foreign forces such as NATO to act recklessly.
