Is NATO’s Indo-Pacific strategy in Europe’s own interests?

It was a pleasure to be interviewed by Sonja Van den Ende, a fellow writer for Strategic Culture. Her probing questions set my train of thought in motion. Here is the first question. "Is NATO’s Indo-Pacific strategy in Europe’s own interests?"

NATO’s Indo-Pacific strategy is a component of NATO’s expansionist endeavors to buttress US hegemony. If we were to explain this strategy to a child, we could say its main objective is to “Keep the Americans in, the Chinese out, and the Russians down”, to paraphrase NATO’s first Secretary General, Lord Hastings, who famously said that NATO was created to “keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.”

While US influence in the Asia-Pacific is rapidly waning, China’s is growing. But since the US is unable to match China’s investments, trade and economic relations with Asian countries, it’s hyping non-existing security threats to impose Cold War ‘bloc thinking’ on the states in the Asia-Pacific region, force them to take sides and coerce its allies to fork out more money for defense.

Previous attempts to damage economic relations between China and US allies had focused on ‘human rights and democracy’ but they mostly fell on deaf ears and may have actually contributed to China’s gains in political and cultural influence in the region. That’s why I fear that the US will ramp up its efforts to undermine regional security. NATO’s growing involvement is part of this strategy.

As far as the US is concerned this strategy was quite successful in Europe as it led to a breakdown in the relationship between Russia and most European countries. Obviously, if we look at it from a European perspective, it was a disaster with a tragic outcome.

NATO’s growing presence in the Asia-Pacific has multiple, mainly negative, implications for the stability, peace and prosperity of the region, and by extension for the global economy, including Europe’s, since Asia is the world’s growth engine.

The US has a tendency to impose its ‘friends vs foes’ Manichean model as a divide et impera strategy. This approach to foreign policy is in stark contrast to the way countries in the Asia-Pacific region manage differences and conflicting interests – by and large they prioritise economic development and seek common ground for cooperation. Painting someone into a corner is not considered a very successful strategy, as it leads to an exacerbation of conflict.

By dragging NATO into the Asia Pacific the US is trying to destroy the limited strategic autonomy EU countries have in managing their relations with China and regional actors. I fear Sino-European relations are about to become a lot more complicated if NATO gets involved. So far European economic elites have been more reluctant to take clear sides in the China-US rivalry than over the war in Ukraine.

It’s worth noting that the tone of NATO’s references to China in official documents started to change in 2019. In 2020 Stoltenberg declared “China does not share our values”. In its 2022 Strategic Concept NATO formally classified China as “a challenge to the organisation’s interests, security and values” and identified the Indo-Pacific as important for the North Atlantic Alliance, claiming that “developments in that region can directly affect Euro Atlantic security.”

The claim that Euro Atlantic security is being jeopardized by China’s influence in the Asia-Pacific is preposterous. If anything, it’s the US massive military presence in the region that is a major concern. Not only has the US been building more military bases near China, Washington is also demonstratively provoking Beijing by strengthening and rallying the anti-China coalition in that region as part of its policy of confrontation and containment of China. In recent years it has orchestrated and funded colour revolutions on Chinese soil (Taipei and Hong Kong), is arming and funding fifth columns, anti-government and separatist forces throughout Asia to destabilize China- friendly countries. As to the cultivation of political and economic elites to be subordinated to and dependent on the US and other former colonial powers, well, Washington has never stopped doing that.

NATO claims to be “a bulwark of the rules-based international order” but this view is not shared by most of the world . NATO’s bloody legacy speaks for itself and this military organisation is widely distrusted. Originally conceived as a collective security alliance to counter the Soviet Union, NATO has since morphed into a tool to assert Western dominance. It is evident that NATO’s presence in the Indo-Pacific, to use an American definition, can only have a detrimental effect on the peace and stability of a part of the world that since the end of the Cold War has largely avoided hostile dynamics preferring to build economic and diplomatic connections to manage regional conflict.

In its ambition to encircle China and isolate Russia within the region, NATO is stepping up its cooperation with other US-led military alliances to increase military-technological interoperability between the Indo-Pacific and the Euro-Atlantic regions. I am referring to AUKUS (Australia, UK, US), to the Australia and Japan mutual defense treaties with the US, and to the Squad (US, Australia, Japan and the Philippines) which is posited as a more aggressive version of the QUAD.

From a Chinese perspective, NATO is a US-led European military alliance that is establishing a strong working relationship with Japan, a former imperial power that invaded their country, brutalized and killed millions of people. NATO’s presence brings back memories of the “century of humiliation”, the period of subjugation China suffered under imperialism, both Western and Japanese. From a more broadly Asian perspective, NATO’s expansion cannot be separated from the painful history of European colonialism and imperialism that shaped modern Asia and that the West has never fully acknowledged.

Is it in Europe’s interest to be associated with that legacy? Do Europeans really think that military projection in the region is not going to have a negative impact on their diplomatic and economic relations with Asian countries? The problem is that EU countries have become captive of US objectives, they are not allowed to have interests that diverge from American ones.

In its unbounded conceit, the EU is now laying claims to the role of security actor in the Asia-Pacific region in addition to presenting itself as a normative and economic actor. All at the same time. It is so detached from reality that it doesn’t even realize the dissonance of these roles.

If you need further proof that the EU has morphed into an appendage of NATO, just take a look at how its strategy towards China changed in sync with NATO’s in less than five years.

In 2018, when the EU launched the first overarching strategy aimed at Asian countries, the EU–Asia Connectivity Strategy, it was open-minded about cooperation with China though this initiative was primarily a response to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). It promised investment based on an alternative developmental model that emphasized norms such as “rule of law, human rights, good governance, and sustainability”. It turned out to be nothing more than a Soft Power exercise: the Connectivity Strategy argued that connectivity goes beyond transport, energy, and digital networks to include people-to-people connectivity, somewhat confusing connectivity and mobility. As a matter of fact, it allocated the greater part of resources to promoting and supporting the mobility of students, researchers, activists and artists. Guess what? One of the main beneficiaries of its “civil society”outreach was Soros’ Open Society Foundations.

In 2021, the EU launched the Indo-Pacific Strategy, adopting the US preferred terminology. It expanded the geographical scope of the EU’s engagement and made explicit reference to security and strategic aims. Significantly, this strategy juxtaposes the EU and China arguing that the EU will “continue to protect its essential interests and promote its values while pushing back where fundamental disagreement exists with China, such as on human rights”.

Then came the Global Gateway Initiative in December 2021, which promised to support partner countries’ development by offering much larger funding opportunities. And in March 2022 the Strategic Compass set out the EU’s stance towards China, making no secret that it sees “China’s promotion of standards incompatible with EU preferences as a threat contributing to systemic rivalry.” It stated that “in an increasingly hostile security environment the EU must accomplish a quantum leap forward in making the EU a stronger more capable security provider.” Adding that the EU seeks to “secure sea lines of communication, capacity-building and enhanced naval presence in the Indo-Pacific.”

Its new emphasis on hard power capabilities in the area of security and defence closely reflects NATO’s.

The EU is trying to justify this new focus on security and defense by pointing out that the region hosts major waterways that are of vital importance to EU trade, including the Malacca Straits, the South China Sea, and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. But since the US and the EU are China’s most important trading partners, it goes without saying that it is also in Beijing’s interest to ensure these waterways remain open to commercial traffic.

China is an export powerhouse, its prosperity is largely predicated on its ability to freely trade with the rest of the world, which requires regional peace and stability. It is obvious that the country has a stake in the preservation of these favourable conditions.

As a matter of fact, China’s cooperation with Asia-Pacific countries is testament to China's constructive role in maintaining regional stability and security. China is also developing this cooperation within multilateral formats, such as the forum of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) the Comprehensive Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) the Belt and Road Initiative, The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and BRICS+.

Part 2 of the interview

https://devend.online/2024/11/29/how-will-the-relationship-with-china-nato-and-the-new-us-administration-develop-an-interview-with-laura-ruggeri-part-i/