NATO asks for China insight

NATO will push Australia to share intelligence and expertise on China as the European military bloc fears the coercive policies of its Asian “rival” now threaten stability on the other side of the world.

The drive comes as NATO revealed it had invited Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to its third summit in Washington this year in a bid to step up relations with Indo-Pacific partners.

An official said the region had become a strategic focus as it was now recognised that developments there affected Euro-Atlantic security.

“China is a significant challenge to NATO with its coercive policies and is a systemic rival to the military alliance,” the senior official said.

“Australia has a lot of experience with coercive policies of China, we can learn from that.”

He said power competition was no longer regional and challenges to security linked the two hemispheres, citing cyber and hybrid attacks and emerging disruptive technologies that could be launched from anywhere.

The official added NATO had equally become concerned about the evolving relationship between North Korea and Russia and the support it was providing to President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine.

“Ammunition missiles and so on … the question is what is North Korea getting in return?” the senior official said.

“This shows how a player in the Indo-Pacific, in East Asia, is coming into the picture.

“We want to step up our cooperation with partners in the Indo-Pacific – it is not about NATO expanding to the IndoPacific in terms of security and defence, but we are in the business of looking at opportunities to discuss and co-operate with partners in the Indo-Pacific.”

Australia, South Korea, NZ and Japan make up NATO’s formal partner nations, dubbed Indo Pacific Four, or IP4.