European Centre for Counterterrorism and Intelligence Studies, Germany & Netherlands – ECCI
The unlikelihood of an Asian NATO
politico -Neither the alliance’s expansion into Asia nor an Asian NATO is really in the cards. But that’s not to say further cooperation isn’t imminent or that deterrence is impossible.
No one believes that NATO will expand to Asia — least of all Asian nations. But there’s still chatter about the possibility.
In reality, Indo-Pacific governments tend to prefer individual partnerships with Western defense giants, and opening the doors to a Western alliance would be extremely out of character. Meanwhile, European allies aren’t too keen to stretch themselves even thinner, and the U.S. believes it’s “premature” to talk about an Asian NATO.
However, the biggest reason behind all the disunity and internecine rivalry within the Indo-Pacific is that the biggest enemy of an Asian state is often another Asian state. And yet, paradoxically, the region’s nations still tend to have a general preference for solving disputes among themselves.
Along these lines, Gilberto Teodoro, the defense secretary of the Philippines — a prominent U.S. ally in Asia — quashed the idea of an Asian NATO at a recent security forum, saying that complex “dichotomies and divergence in country interests” within the region dim the prospect of a unified military alliance.
And according to two EU diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity to speak more freely, there are no plans to extend risky assurances, such as an Article Five-type mutual defense guarantee, to their Asian allies and partners either.
So, it seems neither NATO’s expansion into Asia nor an Asian NATO is really in the cards. But that’s not to say further cooperation isn’t imminent or that deterrence is impossible.
When Russia’s tanks rolled into Kyiv, the reverberations were felt not just across the Atlantic but the Pacific too. And since then, NATO and its four Asian partners (the AP4) — Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand — have met more often. They’ve mainly discussed how to respond to China’s and Russia’s hybrid warfare. In 2022, they participated in a NATO summit for the first time. And last month, in another first, their defense ministers attended a NATO defense ministerial in Brussels.
This increase in engagement is aimed at dissuading Beijing from invading Taiwan, to discourage it from bullying other Western allies in the region and to counter its “no limits” partnership with Moscow. According to NATO, Beijing is a “decisive enabler” in the ongoing Ukraine conflict, and allies believe China isn’t just keeping the Russian economy afloat but also supplying the country with tools and technologies for making weapons.
However, while security in the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific regions seem to be growing increasingly linked, all the rumblings around NATO’s Asia expansion are actually being fueled by China — not European capitals. “NATO in Asia, that is a Chinese invention to paint the West as expansionist warmongers,” a Brussels-based diplomat told me.
And that can be an effective narrative in Asia, where deep-rooted anti-Western sentiment lingers and memories of colonial oppression remain.
Disunity is the region’s norm, and there’s still no consensus on how to respond to China’s belligerence. For instance, various Southeast Asian nations, such as Indonesia, Vietnam and Malaysia, have competing claims over islands in the South China Sea. And even though Beijing has been hoisting the Chinese flag and building military posts on the tiny islands in the middle of this disputed sea, others have preferred a quiet, noncombative solution but failed to adopt a unified approach.
Moreover, Seoul and Tokyo — a major ally to both the EU and the U.S. — despise each other over a range of historical issues. Imperial Japan’s exploitation of South Korea during and before World War II, and South Korea’s control over the resource-rich Liancourt Rocks islets are a continuing source of mistrust and animus. In fact, South Korea views Japan alongside China as one of its major security threats.
Ying-Yu Lin, a military expert at Taiwan’s Tamkang University, believes that the division among Asian allies will never let them unite under a common defensive umbrella. “They would rather share intelligence with the U.S. than with each other,” he said.
Then there are the precious trade ties with Beijing to consider — ties neither Asia nor Europe want to disrupt too much. Because even though anti-China rhetoric may get shriller with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s second tenure, Beijing remains the top trade partner of both.
“Korea and Japan feel maybe China will attack in the future — maybe. But they have a lot of business cooperation with China right now, which they don’t want to risk,” Lin said. And India, which is a key counterweight to China in the Indo-Pacific region, is vehemently opposed to “group defensive alliances,” he added.
But despite the absence of a full-fledged entrance into NATO, cooperation continues to grow.
Factoring in Asia’s disunity, U.S. President Joe Biden and his team have been setting up smaller groups to contain China. First, Biden revived the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad, including Australia, India, Japan and the U.S. Then, India’s sensitivity toward being seen as part of an anti-China security alliance gave birth to Squad, which excludes India but includes the Philippines. The U.S. has also encouraged confidence-building measures between Seoul and Tokyo, supported Japanese defense investments and identified new bases for joint use in the Philippines.
European allies, for their part, started building a cooperative framework with the aim of deterring China. And according to experts, just like the EU supports Ukraine without it being a NATO member, the bloc can also aid its partners in Asia, offering both intelligence and material support.
Recently, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte also revealed it was South Korean intelligence that briefed NATO on the “deployment of thousands of North Korean troops to Russia’s Kursk region.” And defense-industrial cooperation with Seoul has become essential since South Korea supplied more ammunition to Ukraine than Europe.
Meanwhile, others believe that as Japan gradually breaks away from its pacifist constitution and continues to increase defense expenditure, the mistrust between Seoul and Tokyo might show signs of abating. Just last month, the EU and Japan signed a Security and Defense Partnership to promote “concrete naval cooperation” and discuss “defense initiatives including exchange of information on defense industry-related matters.”
Moreover, it was new Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba who said it was time to float an “Asian NATO,” as if reverse engineering China’s rhetoric into a call for unity.
U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel also recently made a case for an economic NATO. “Over the past three years, the U.S. and its allies in the region have strengthened their partnerships and transformed the security landscape, isolating China,” he wrote. The fact that China has been a belligerent economic power has provided “the free world with an opening … The U.S. must now further integrate economic statecraft into its wider strategic latticework architecture,” he noted.
And that in particular is something the alliance’s European members should take note of — even if an Asian NATO might not be on the horizon.