Beijing has been on the diplomatic warpath against NATO, warning the transatlantic military alliance not to meddle in the Asia-Pacific region. But this week’s NATO summit in Lithuania showed that Asian countries are committed to deepening ties with NATO despite China’s threats of retaliation. If President Xi Jinping is searching for someone to blame, he ought to look in the mirror.
For months, senior Chinese officials have been ramping up their anti-NATO rhetoric. In a June speech at a major conference in Singapore, China’s defense minister, Li Shangfu, accused the United States of pushing for NATO-like structures in Asia “to hold countries in the region hostage and play up conflict and confrontation.” Former Chinese ambassador to Washington Cui Tiankai told the same audience, “We don’t need an Asian NATO. We don’t want to see expansion of NATO’s role in our region.”
According to Beijing’s logic, the Ukraine war is evidence that the European security architecture, of which NATO is a key part, has failed. The best course Europe can pursue for Asia is to “do nothing,” Cui said. At a different event this month, Cui said, “If NATO tries to expand into the Asia-Pacific, it might well signify its decline.”
The NATO summit offered a loud and clear rebuke of those words from (most) NATO members and several Indo-Pacific powers. China’s threats are in fact pushing Asian countries into NATO’s arms.
“What happens in the Indo-Pacific matters for Europe and what happens for Europe matters for the Indo-Pacific,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said when greeting South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol at the summit.
Yoon said he wanted to “institutionalize the framework of our cooperation with NATO.” The two established a new South Korea-NATO partnership to cooperate in 11 areas, including military connectivity, cyberdefense and nonproliferation. Yoon’s moves come as Beijing is amping up its economic coercion campaign against South Korea.
This was the second time that Yoon and his counterparts from Japan, Australia and New Zealand attended the NATO summit — a grouping now referred to as the Asia Pacific Partners, or AP4, for short. Nobody is trying to create a copy of NATO in the Indo-Pacific, but Asian democracies are starting to join forces to resist Beijing’s aggression.
Meanwhile, China’s bullying and assertive “wolf warrior diplomacy” in Europe is spurring smaller, mostly Eastern European countries to push back by getting more involved in Asia. Ahead of the NATO summit, Lithuania issued its first “Indo-Pacific strategy.” For the Lithuanians, China’s attempts this year to sink their economy (as punishment for deepening ties with Taiwan) were a wake-up call.
“Unsuccessful attempts by China to exert economic and diplomatic pressure on Lithuania proves that a country can withstand economic blackmail if it has built up societal resilience and has reliable partners,” the strategy states. “Lithuanian experience in its relations with China allows us to share lessons learned in resisting pressure with the countries in the Indo-Pacific and beyond.”
There are increasing signs that security ties between some Asian and European democracies are deepening. South Korea is not only quietly shipping munitions to Ukraine; it is now openly selling tanks to Poland. Meanwhile, European militaries are increasingly participating in military exercises in the Pacific. Democracies in both regions are also working to jointly reduce their dependence on China for high-technology goods and other key resources.
Of course, not all NATO countries are on the same page regarding China. Although the NATO Joint Communiqué contained strong language criticizing China’s policies and pledging robust cooperation with the assembled Asian-Pacific democracies, one previously expected plank was missing.
The French government blocked a long-discussed plan to open a NATO office in Tokyo. This comes soon after French President Emmanuel Macron was criticized for saying Europe has no interest in becoming “America’s followers” regarding the Taiwan issue. Macron’s argument is that Europe should not confront China over NATO or Taiwan while it’s still embroiled in the Ukraine crisis.
Perhaps the best rebuttal to that view was offered by President Biden, who drew a clear connection between the security of the two regions in his Wednesday speech. He noted that the Asian countries attending the NATO summit have been staunch supporters of Ukraine.
“We’re working to deepen connections between the Atlantic and Pacific democracies so they can better work together toward the shared values we all seek: strong alliances, versatile partnerships, common purpose, collective action to meet our shared challenges,” Biden said. “Will we turn back naked, unchecked aggression today to deter other would-be aggressors tomorrow?”
Beijing’s efforts to prevent Asian countries from getting closer to NATO and stop NATO from getting closer to Asia are backfiring. This is not a U.S.-led plot to contain China. Asian and European countries are realizing they can achieve security in their own region only if they help defend each other.
