Eyes on China? Why some Asian nations 'privately welcome' Nato's regional move

Nato's efforts to strengthen cooperation in a region increasingly dominated by China have the potential to create more stability and are actually "privately" welcomed by Asian leaders, say analysts.

Some Asian nations have also drawn strategically closer to their counterparts in Europe amid China's growing military and security ties with Russia, among other developments.

Nato said last month it would deepen collaboration with its four major partners in the Indo-Pacific region by upgrading ties with Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea under what it calls the Individually Tailored Partnership Programme (ITPP).

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Details of the ITPP are still being worked out, but are likely to include cooperation in areas such as cyberspace, countering disinformation and new and emerging technologies.

The four countries, which Nato calls its "partners across the globe" - or Asia-Pacific partners (AP4) - have also agreed to work together more closely on maritime security, climate change and resilience, the transatlantic security alliance said in an April statement.

Stephen Nagy, a politics and international studies professor at Tokyo's International Christian University, said Nato's institutional cooperation with countries in the region should not be seen as destabilising.

"Rather, it has the potential to create more stability within the region by fostering collaboration, education, information sharing and strategies to push back against areas such as cyberattacks, the challenges of new technologies such as AI and countering disinformation," he said.

China has let it be known that it opposes Nato's outreach into Asia, with defence minister Li Shangfu saying last month at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore that attempts to establish such alliances were "a way of kidnapping regional countries and exaggerating conflicts and confrontations".

But Nagy said Nato's discussions were currently focused on "cooperation in technical areas that will boost information sharing and strategising how to deal with challenges facing the region", rather than the deployment of military resources.

While some Southeast Asian countries have voiced their concerns about the alliance's presence in the region, Nagy said this was to ensure that "China is not offended".

"Privately, many welcome the US, Nato and other multilateral institutions into the region to balance China's influence, and bring and potentially anchor the United States into the region," he added.

Blake Herzinger, research fellow in the foreign policy and defence programme at the United States Studies Centre in Australia, said the AP4 partners would continue working with Nato on transnational challenges such as cyber and nuclear security and threats to the global rules-based order.

"Nato cooperation with other Indo-Pacific states is not new, in some cases stretching back three decades or more," Herzinger said, noting that Nato was not building a formal operational presence in the region.

He said most regional countries were "generally happy to have the signal of support and show of interest" from powers such as the US and those in Europe, which have sent carrier strike groups to Asia in recent years according to their own national interests, outside the auspices of Nato.

Britain dispatched its HMS Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier to the South China Sea in 2021 and has pledged to do so again in 2025. France's Charles de Gaulle carrier strike group, meanwhile, conducted exercises with the India's navy in the Indian Ocean earlier this year.

"Nato has been very clear that it does not view China as an adversary, but as a systemic challenge," Herzinger said.

Those who claimed that the alliance was provoking Beijing by deepening its partnerships with the AP4 might be better served by asking why these countries "feel it necessary and desirable to seek deeper security relationships with Nato", he said.

"[China's] effort to paint Nato as somehow intruding in the Indo-Pacific is particularly hypocritical when Beijing clearly feels no such compunction about actually operating with the Russian navy in European waters as it has in the Mediterranean, Black, and Baltic Seas," Herzinger said.

Jae-Jeok Park, an associate international-relations professor at Yonsei University, said defence industry cooperation and peacekeeping operations might be covered in the ITPP between Nato and South Korea.

In these two areas, South Korea was "in a better position to work with Nato than Japan", Park said, referring to Seoul's growing emergence as an arms supplier - exporting a record US$17.3 billion's worth last year - and the more than 500 South Korean peacekeepers serving in the UN's various peacekeeping missions.

Park said Washington was attempting to create a US-led security network linking its Indo-Pacific alliances with Nato in Europe - a consolidation aimed at countering China's increasing assertiveness.

"The restoration of the relationship between South Korea and Japan will put Nato in a better position to work with the AP4," Park said, referring to the recent thaw in bilateral ties that were previously strained by animosity stemming from issues related to Japan's wartime occupation of the Korean peninsula.

Abdul Rahman Yaacob, a PhD candidate researching Southeast Asian security and relations to major powers at the Australian National University's National Security College, said the growing convergence of security interests between Nato and the AP4 countries was "unsurprising" due to recent developments.

The Russian and Chinese militaries conducted joint exercises in the East China Sea in December, for instance, and since 2019 have been carrying out joint air patrols over waters bordering Japan, the Korean peninsula and Taiwan.

"Closer cooperation between Nato and the Indo-Pacific countries on security matters will be a natural progression," Abdul Rahman said.

He urged all nations, including those in Southeast Asia, not to "overreact" as the ITPP was not meant to be seen as a "Nato equivalent in the Indo-Pacific region", but instead represented closer cooperation on security issues.

Western security observers, Abdul Rahman said, were often perplexed by Southeast Asian nations who remained generally silent about China's military expansion and behaviour, yet expressed concerns against Western initiatives such as Aukus, the trilateral security alliance between Australia, Britain and the US.

"Thus, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' ... claim of neutrality is being seen with suspicion," he said.

Celine Pajon, head of Japan research at the French Institute of International Relations' Centre for Asian Studies in Paris, said Japan expected its ITPP to facilitate information sharing, strengthen resilience against common threats, and address challenges in cyberspace, outer space and the maritime domain.

"By engaging with as many partners as possible, Japan aims to avoid being caught in a precarious position between the US and China," Pajon said.

Nato could also provide valuable lessons to its Asian partners based on its experience with the former Soviet Union and subsequently Russia, especially when it came to "influence operations, disinformation, and hybrid warfare, tactics [also] employed by the Chinese regime", Pajon said.

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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