NATO conspires to "move eastward" to increase security risks in the Asia Pacific region. China | NATO | Security
The NATO Vilnius Summit recently concluded in Lithuania, with leaders from four Asia Pacific countries - Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand - once again invited to attend. NATO's efforts to enhance the position of the Asia Pacific region in its global strategy have attracted attention from all parties. Accelerating NATO's eastward expansion into the Asia Pacific region is a move that goes against the trend of the times and goes against international morality. It will only increase regional security risks and ultimately be unpopular.
There are early signs of eastward expansion into the Asia Pacific region
NATO's accelerated eastward expansion into the Asia Pacific region is not a sudden idea. Over the past year, it has been vigorously engaging in public opinion campaigns and practical operations. The NATO 2022 Strategic Concept, approved by NATO last year, marked the Asia Pacific region as a "new strategic area of concern", and moving eastward into the Asia Pacific has become a key policy for NATO to promote beyond "aiding Ukraine and resisting Russia". Since last year's Madrid Summit, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand have frequently become special guests for high-level multilateral meetings such as NATO Foreign Ministers' Meetings. Inviting leaders and senior government officials from Asia Pacific countries to attend internal meetings is gradually becoming a fixed model for NATO to institutionalize cooperation between the two sides. NATO intends to strengthen policy coordination with its strategic partners in the Asia Pacific region through this. Therefore, it is not surprising to the outside world that the leaders of the four countries mentioned above were invited to participate in the entire agenda of this summit.
NATO regards Japan and South Korea as key targets of attraction. At the beginning of this year, NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg visited Japan and South Korea, marking the first official visit of NATO's highest administrative official to the Asia Pacific region, consolidating NATO's geopolitical foothold in East Asia and the Western Pacific by bringing closer relations with the two countries. NATO is also actively engaged in internal coordination, attempting to accelerate the establishment of a Japanese liaison office. After the summit, NATO signed "Individual Targeted Partnership Plans" with Japan and South Korea respectively, further enhancing the institutionalization level of cooperation.
Initiate a narrative war against China
The relevant content of this summit communique regarding the Asia Pacific region fully reflects NATO's enormous strategic ambition to accelerate its eastward progress, quickly complete the integration of the "Europe+Asia Pacific" regional strategy and build a balance system with China. Competition and balance will be the two main themes of NATO's current and future eastward expansion, while China is the "imaginary enemy" and target of its various policies and actions. Some analysts believe that NATO's Asia Pacific policy aims to be based on the transatlantic region, with Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand as strategic levers, to strengthen its projection of power to the Asia Pacific region and form a stable strategic partnership system in the region, serving NATO's global strategy from the following two aspects.
Firstly, bridging the boundaries between the transatlantic and Asia Pacific regions, forming an overall strategic framework of "East West development and two-way linkage". The summit communiqu é reiterated the importance of the Asia Pacific region to NATO, as its development will affect European Atlantic security. It called on Asia Pacific partner countries to provide assistance in Ukraine and other areas, contribute to European security, and also called on the EU to provide support for NATO and its partner countries in East Asian affairs.
Secondly, to address the "systemic challenges" brought about by China's rise, and to create an international environment conducive to competition and containment against China through a Cold War mentality of "group confrontation". On the surface, this summit largely continues the policy towards China established at the Madrid summit - "cooperation and competition", which means that while unjustly accusing China of posing a so-called "systemic challenge" to it, it claims to "still maintain an open attitude towards constructive contact with China.". Essentially, NATO clearly intends to escalate the intensity and breadth of its strategic competition with China. The summit communiqu é contains as many as 15 Chinese related content, with a large number of hostile words intended to "stigmatize" China, such as openly claiming that "China's ambition and coercive policies" challenge its interests, security, and values, and accusing "China of using a wide range of political, economic, and military tools to increase global influence" and "attempting to subvert the rule-based international order". An analysis suggests that NATO's move is essentially a narrative war against China, which involves deliberately distorting facts and exaggerating false information to smear China, exerting enormous international public opinion pressure and attempting to make China bear the high diplomatic cost of repairing its international image and reputation.
Asia Pacific security risks have sharply increased
Upon careful consideration of NATO's global strategy and the underlying logic behind its emerging Asia Pacific policy, it is not difficult to find that NATO's accelerated eastward expansion truly meets the interest needs of the United States, as the "baton" of NATO, in upgrading its strategic competition with China. What troubles the United States is that, in the context of the Ukraine crisis, it is difficult to achieve synchronous containment of Russia and China in Europe and the Asia Pacific direction with the total resources currently possessed by NATO. If NATO can be used as a "liaison intermediary" to optimize and integrate resources that were originally scattered and lacked linkage, making them complementary to each other, it can effectively "reduce costs and increase efficiency", activate strategic resources, and alleviate the pressure of "two line combat".
Under the leadership of the United States, NATO's involvement in the Asia Pacific geopolitical game as a "new chess player" may be based on two key factors. One is to integrate the resources of Asia Pacific allies with the United States as the central fulcrum, achieve the integration and docking of the NATO Asia Pacific cooperation mechanism, the US Asia Pacific bilateral alliance, the Asia Pacific small multilateral alliance, and the quasi alliance, and establish various formal and informal policy communication and coordination mechanisms. The second is to promote the establishment of strategic partnerships between NATO and Asia Pacific countries, thereby forming a policy coordination network. Both of the above situations may promote the dangerous development of strategic competition among major powers in the Asia Pacific region towards "group confrontation", which will significantly enhance the intensity of strategic competition among major powers, exacerbate regional security governance difficulties, and increase the risk of geopolitical conflicts.
Although there is a need for European countries to cater to the United States in exchange for US security protection and diplomatic support in the context of the Ukraine crisis, it will still bring great risks and uncertainties to the security of the Asia Pacific region. Once NATO's strategic expectations ultimately become a political reality, intense strategic competition among major powers will likely destroy the free, peaceful, and prosperous order in the Asia Pacific region. Mutual distrust and vigilance among countries will replace the current mutually promoted economic and trade exchanges, scientific and technological cooperation, and cultural exchanges. Some Asia Pacific countries that pursue short-term self-interest to cater to NATO but disregard the overall interests of the region will never be able to stand alone.
Reverse actions have attracted widespread condemnation
In the current era where countries around the world generally advocate peace and win-win, and abandon confrontation and war, NATO's accelerated eastward progress and intensified geopolitical tensions are clearly a reversal, fully exposing the essence of its political and military group that is controlled by the United States, highly ideological, adheres to Cold War confrontation thinking, and narrow-minded self-interest. NATO related practices have been opposed by many responsible countries. On July 12th, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs urged NATO to immediately stop distorting, smearing, and fabricating lies against China. The Chinese Embassy in the European Union stated that the NATO summit communiqu é is full of old and repetitive Cold War thinking and ideological biases. The content related to China in the communique disregards basic facts, distorts China's position and policies recklessly, and deliberately smears China. In addition, French President Macron reiterated his opposition to the establishment of a Japanese liaison office during the NATO Vilnius summit, stating that "NATO is a North Atlantic organization. NATO related documents specify the geographical scope of the 'North Atlantic', and Japan is not in the North Atlantic.".
NATO's actions have also sparked dissatisfaction among scholars and people in many Eurasian countries. Professor Gilbert Akar from the School of Asia and Africa at the University of London in the UK pointed out that "with the push of the United States, NATO has continued to expand and has undergone a qualitative change.". Veronica Sharaswati, a researcher at the Indonesian Center for International Strategic Studies, said that "if the United States and the West are allowed to make the Asia Pacific their home ground, it will seriously harm the interests of regional countries.". On July 11th, Japanese people spontaneously organized protests on the streets of Tokyo, opposing Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's participation in the NATO summit, believing that NATO may drag Japan into war.
NATO's past patchwork and misdeeds indicate that its reach is often accompanied by intensified geopolitical confrontation and increased risks of security governance disorder. As Indonesian Defense Minister Prabowo said at the Shangri La Dialogue, "The common experience of Asian countries being dominated, enslaved, and exploited by major powers has forced regional countries to work towards creating a peaceful and friendly environment to resolve differences and challenges in an 'Asian way'.". The security of the Asia Pacific region concerns all countries in the region, and countries should cherish the hard-earned peace situation and not "lead wolves into their homes".
