US, European officials plan to create ‘Asian NATO’ to contain Chinese expansionism

In a bid to contain China’s expansionist ambitions, the United States and European officials are thinking to create an ‘Asian NATO’ of regional powers, according to the Washington Times. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that China’s emergence as a rising superpower is ‘fundamentally shifting the global balance of power’ in ways that should motivate NATO itself to become more global. 

While taking a step forward in the same direction, US Deputy Secretary of State Stephen E. Biegun also recently suggested that the alignment of the informal defence between the US, Japan, Australia and India are already known as the Quad could be the beginning of a NATO-style alliance in Asia. Speaking at a US-India strategic dialogue last month, Biegun had said that in the first term of the next US President or Trump administration’s second term, it is something that would be very much worthwhile to explore. 

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The senior officials of all the four aforementioned countries had recently held a virtual meeting to discuss the same. The Indian Ministry of External Affairs had said that the four countries called for a ‘free, open prosperous and inclusive’ Indo-Pacific region based on shared values and respect for international law. 

Biegun said, “It is a reality that the Indo-Pacific region is actually lacking in strong multilateral structures. They don't have anything of the fortitude of NATO or the European Union. The strongest institutions in Asia oftentimes are not inclusive enough”. 

He added, “There is certainly an invitation there at some point to formalize a structure like this”.

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China’s activities ‘threatening’ to global stability 

The US Deputy Secretary of State, last month, said that the Asian NATO would be about more than countering China, and could focus broadly coordinating militaries and economies of the region’s smaller nations around a rules-based valued system. 

Michael Kugelman, who is the deputy director of the Asia program at the Wilson Centre, said that the countries in past were worried about antagonising China, but ‘things are different now’. Kugelman added that the Quad really has legs at this point and that is because there is a growing consensus among the Quad nations, as well as other countries in the region, that China’s activities there are not only aggressive but also increasingly threatening to global stability. 

(With inputs from ANI) 

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