Among those who convened this month in Vilnius, Lithuania, for the yearly NATO summit were the non-NATO members Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand. Their presence illustrates how NATO is increasingly linking trans-Atlantic security to events in the Indo-Pacific. The alliance is preparing to combat the threat posed by China’s military and economic rise.

Europeans have rarely agreed on the best way forward to deal with China, and countries have based their policies on what suits their respective national interests. France blocked the opening of a NATO liaison office in Tokyo to stay on Beijing’s good side. Germany, for its part, only recently released its first–and cautiously worded–China security strategy.

But at least since the start of Russia’s Ukraine invasion, it has also been clear to NATO allies that trade and mutual economic well-being does not always change the behavior of authoritarian states. That has compelled allies to take note of their overwhelming dependence on China, including for key minerals indispensable for modern life.

“The conflict in Ukraine shifted things,” said Andrew Small, a senior trans-Atlantic fellow with the German Marshall Fund’s Asia Program. “There is more appreciation now [in the EU] of how Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic are more intertwined.”

Last week, the 31 NATO member states signed a scathing communique accusing China of deploying all tools at its disposal to expand “its global footprint and project power, while remaining opaque about its strategy, intentions and military build-up.”

They reprimanded Beijing for using “its economic leverage to create strategic dependencies” and warned it against arming Russian forces. “We particularly call on the PRC to act responsibly and refrain from providing any lethal aid to Russia,” the states said, presumably hoping to establish a red line.

China’s response was indignant. It accused NATO of looking for an excuse to expand eastward into Asia and warned of a “resolute response” while carrying out large military exercises around Taiwan. As Asian partners met with their European allies, more than 30 Chinese warplanes entered Taiwan’s air defense identification zone and four combat ready warships patrolled the waters around the self-governing island, which China claims in its entirety.

“China has the best record on peace and security. We have never invaded any country or engaged in any proxy war,” said Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry, taking a jab at the United States’ Iraq and Afghanistan invasions and ignoring concerns about Chinese intentions to invade Taiwan and change the status quo unilaterally. He accused NATO of possessing a “Cold War mentality” with a “zero-sum mindset,” and said there was no need for an “Asia-Pacific version of NATO.”

This was the second consecutive year that NATO invited its Asian partners for the yearly gathering, an indication of the seriousness NATO attaches to the Chinese threat. But is NATO preparing to include them as full-fledged members of the military alliance, as Beijing infers, or simply trying to enhance ties?

Since assuming charge, the Biden administration has been guided by the firm belief that an autocratic China is both the biggest threat to a rules-based international order and presenting itself as an alternative model, hiding a lack of political rights behind its economic growth. The White House has stacked China right at the top of U.S. security priorities and sought its closest allies, Europeans, to work in tandem and spell out a coherent and coordinated China strategy.

In 2019, the EU described China as a partner, competitor, and a systemic rival in a strategy document. Since then, it has increased focus on identifying just how much and how deeply each member state is entangled with Chinese companies. In March this year, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed de-risking, rather than de-coupling, from China, implying that even though EU nations are unable to completely cut off trade with China, they must look to diversify and replace Chinese imports, at least in areas critical to security.

Europe has several concerns about China, broadly split into two categories: a military spillover from China’s potential invasion of Taiwan and a fear of abuse of economic dependencies. NATO General-Secretary Jens Stoltenberg said that by 2035, China is expected to have “1500 nuclear warheads on missiles that can reach North America and the whole of Europe, NATO territory,” elucidating why China’s military might has caused ripples in the alliance.

The alleged secrecy around China’s nuclear stockpiles is unnerving for NATO members, but the major military threat from China is felt by the Asian partner states that attended the Vilnius summit. But if security is seen through the prism of availability of critical raw materials and freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific, through which 60 percent of maritime trade passes, China could cause trouble if it wanted.

In her country’s latest National Security Strategy, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said that “security also means making sure our heating works in winter,” in reference to how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine resulted in an energy crisis across Europe.

“Security means being able to find medication for our children in our pharmacies. Having smartphones that work because supplies of the necessary microchips are reliable,” she said, alluding to critical supply chains that China could threaten. For instance, if China invaded Taiwan, it could disrupt supply of electronic chips, most of which are manufactured by one Taiwanese company and used to power everything from mobile phones to electric vehicles.

Large-scale Chinese investments in critical European infrastructure are also believed to carry security risks. Chinese investments in European ports have been particularly controversial because ports are counted as strategic assets. Some of these European ports are, naturally, logistical hubs for NATO equipment.

“How could China use its control of critical European infrastructure in a wartime scenario? That’s a relevant question and a military scenario that needs to be taken into account while planning a China strategy,” added Small, of the German Marshall Fund.

China has already weaponized economic dependencies. It imposed what amounted to a trade embargo on Lithuania to punish it for siding with Taiwan in the dispute over its legitimacy. In 2020, when the Australian prime minister called for an investigation into the origin of COVID-19, Beijing banned coal imports from Australia and imposed hefty tariffs on Australian wine and other products.

NATO has no plans to invite any of its Asian allies to join the alliance, but it does intend to increase interoperability and conduct joint defense exercises.

A number of leading experts told Foreign Policy that NATO’s remit cannot expand into Asia without rewriting the treaty that led to its formation.

“The scope of NATO is clearly marked in the Washington treaty, north of the Tropic of Cancer. NATO can’t take new members unless member states change the whole treaty, and that is very unlikely,” said Janne Leino, the program manager for foreign and security policy at German think tank Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung.

Mirna Galic, a senior policy analyst at the U.S. Institute of Peace, said NATO’s charter specifies that new members can be only from Europe. China was engaging in “disinformation,” she said, when it accused NATO of eastward expansion. “If you notice, only China says NATO wants to expand into Asia–no one else.”

It is noteworthy that the Chinese narrative sounds a lot like Russian President Vladimir Putin’s justification for Ukraine’s invasion–to protect Russia from NATO’s expansion on its doorstep. (A falsehood that lies exposed, since more than a year into the invasion, Ukraine has still not been invited to join NATO.) Beijing is weaving the same lies to paint the Western allies as expansionists. It can be a catchy and popular narrative in the East but doesn’t add up under scrutiny.

“China was happy with NATO in Afghanistan,” Galic said. “Its objections now are inconsistent with previous positions.” China had significant mining interests in Logar, Afghanistan, that were secured by the NATO presence in the war-torn country. “My sense is China is opposed to strengthening American alliances; it wants to undercut the legitimacy of defense groupings in the region,” Galic added.

NATO is enhancing ties with Asian allies under a variety of partnership agreements. NATO and South Korea upgraded their partnership on the sidelines of Vilnius summit and agreed to cooperate more in military matters and in the cybersphere. In a bid to be a good ally, Seoul has been sending much-needed ammunition to Ukraine and selling tanks to Poland.

“The partners are not looking for full membership, but a bit of interoperability, common training with NATO forces, joint capabilities–they want to have similar weaponry as NATO members,” Leino said.

The core goal behind the cooperation is aligning the military capabilities of European and Asian democracies to be able to take on the China challenge if the need arises.

“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,” U.S. President Joe Biden said in a speech at Vilnius. “We’re working with our allies and partners to build supply chains that are more resilient, more secure, so we never again face a situation like we had during the pandemic where we couldn’t get critical goods we needed for our daily lives,” he said, in reference to the personal protective equipment that was short in supply during the coronavirus pandemic as China reduced exports for use at home.

Later in his speech, Biden added: “Will we turn back naked, unchecked aggression today to deter other would-be aggressors tomorrow?” For NATO, it’s clear, China now qualifies as one of those would-be aggressors.