International Sharp Review: Want to Survive by Disrupting the Asia Pacific? NATO miscalculated NATO | time | international

Starting from the 11th local time, the NATO summit will be held in Lithuania. In addition to the core theme of the situation in Ukraine, the participation of leaders from Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand for the second consecutive year has once again heated up the issue of NATO's Asia Pacific integration. According to Japanese media reports, due to opposition from France, the plan to discuss NATO's opening of the first Asian liaison office in Japan, originally scheduled for the summit, has been postponed until after the autumn. But analysts believe that under the leadership of the United States, NATO's intention to extend its sphere of influence to the Asia Pacific region will not change.

As a product of the Cold War era, NATO has been the core pillar of the United States in maintaining its hegemony since its inception, and "invincibility makes survival difficult" is its operational logic. Since the end of the cold war, driven by the US strategy of "stepping on Germany and France", "kicking Russia away" and "competing for China", NATO has carried out six rounds of eastward expansion, provoked the Russia-Ukraine conflict, created security divisions in Europe, and constantly extended its tentacles to the Asia Pacific region.

As early as January 2006, Victoria Newland, then the US Ambassador to NATO, first proposed the concept of a "global partnership", attempting to expand NATO's global influence through the establishment of a liaison mechanism with Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand. In 2009, NATO launched the "on-demand customized cooperation plan" to promote cooperation between NATO and the four countries in the Asia Pacific region based on their respective needs. In the following decade, due to the unsmooth adjustment of the US strategic focus towards the Asia Pacific region, the process of NATO's Asia Pacific integration slowed down. After the release of the Indo Pacific Strategic Report by the US Department of Defense in 2019, NATO cooperated accordingly. In 2022, the "NATO New Strategic Concept" first mentioned China and clearly regarded it as a "systemic challenge", using it as an excuse to accelerate the process of Asia Pacific integration.

Looking back at history, it can be found that "Asia Pacific" is a continuation of NATO's mission led by the United States to create crises in the Asia Pacific region and empower itself. This is a crucial step for NATO's attempt to move towards globalization. In this process, the pathological concept of Western style transformation of Asia Pacific countries runs through, and the consequences can be imagined.

NATO claims to be a "values alliance". After the Cold War, NATO forcibly shaped the political and value systems of other countries using Western values, leading to the disintegration of Yugoslavia, the Bosnian Civil War, and the Kosovo issue in the 1990s. In the Middle East, NATO coalition forces, led by the United States, invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, carried out airstrikes on Libya, and brought profound disasters to the local people. If NATO intervenes in the Asia Pacific region and Westernizes the internal governance and values of Asia Pacific countries, it will inevitably trigger widespread resistance, bring crisis and turbulence.

In the process of NATO's Asia Pacific integration, Japan played a role in attracting wolves into the house. In May 2014, Japan signed the Single Country Partnership and Cooperation Plan with NATO, continuously improving the level of cooperation with NATO and playing the role of a "leading party" in introducing NATO into the Asia Pacific region. The reason behind this is not only that Japan is a staunch follower of the United States, but also because Japan has the ambition to return to the path of a military superpower and wants to borrow strength from NATO in defense. NATO plans to establish the first Asian liaison office in Tokyo, indicating its intention to relocate the Asia Pacific Action Coordination Center to Japan, which has sparked strong opposition from the local population.

Recently, many Japanese and South Korean citizens held rallies to protest against the military tension caused by NATO and oppose NATO's Asia Pacific integration. Former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating issued a statement criticizing NATO's "provocative eastward move" towards Asia and "exporting competing poison to Asia.". Tang Zhimin, Director of the China ASEAN Research Center at Chiang Kai shek School of Management in Thailand, pointed out that ASEAN countries have always been vigilant and concerned about NATO's involvement in Asia.

In fact, within NATO, there is also opposition to its extension of its sphere of influence. For example, French President Macron once said that NATO has "brain dead" and explicitly opposed NATO's establishment of a liaison office in Japan. French officials say that NATO, abbreviated as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is collectively protected by the United States and Europe, and it is not appropriate to establish a base in the Asia Pacific region. This rational voice is worth listening to and reflecting on by NATO members.

The Asia Pacific is a highland for cooperative development, not a chessboard for major powers to compete on. The US led NATO wants to replicate the so-called "European experience" to the Asia Pacific, but in reality, it wants to replicate division and confrontation to the Asia Pacific, and the people of the region will never agree. It wants to survive by disrupting the Asia Pacific region, and peace loving people around the world will not agree. As Ken Stone, the head of the Hamilton Armistice Alliance, a Canadian anti war organization, said, NATO is an aggressive military organization led by the United States, and according to NATO's own charter, it has long lost its meaning of existence.