NATO’s overreach raises risk of conflict
Bloc’s Asia approach built on shaky foundations amid hyped-up ‘China threat’, analysts say
When NATO leaders met last week in Madrid, they were joined — for the first time — by leaders from Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. The invitations extended to the Asia-Pacific countries show that the trans-Atlantic alliance’s ambitions far exceed the boundaries of its traditional geographical scope.
Although the participation of the four countries did help put on a show of unity for the alliance, their resolve remains to be tested by growing economic pressures at home.
On July 4, the chief of Japan’s Mitsui OSK Lines, said Japan will have to continue importing Russian liquefied natural gas regardless of Russia’s national policy.
Takeshi Hashimoto, president and chief executive of the shipping giant, said: “Nowadays, the spot market for both LNG and coal is quite expensive. That is one of the reasons why Japan is so reluctant to stop LNG imports from Russia.”
Hashimoto’s comments reveal how influential figures in Japan, which followed the United States’ lead in imposing sanctions on Russia, are having second thoughts about that approach. They also suggest that, beyond the hugs and handshakes, the leaders at the gathering in the Spanish capital may start diverging from the common line on banning Russia’s energy imports.
Since the Ukraine crisis started, Japan has not hesitated in taking provocative actions against Russia. However, as Japan’s energy infrastructure
comes under pressure from a scorching heat wave, Tokyo has avoided any direct action on Russian LNG, which makes up 9 percent of Japan’s imports.
“The US and NATO members keep bragging that they are so-called like-minded countries but the talks could not disguise the growing tensions between them as the economic burden becomes more apparent and more pressing,” said Wang Qi, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing.
The NATO summit that concluded on June 30 was hailed by the alliance’s chief as “transformative”, “with farreaching decisions” made, but experts have expressed concerns for a heightened
risk of conflicts resulting from the proposed changes.
The summit saw the alliance endorse its so-called new Strategic Concept blueprint, which positions Russia as the “most significant and direct threat” to NATO allies’ security while accusing China of striving to “subvert the rules-based international order”.
“China is not our adversary. But we must be clear-eyed about the serious challenges it represents,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said.
During the summit, NATO formally extended an invitation to Finland and Sweden to join the group.
Yan Shaohua, an associate professor at the Institute of International
Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, said the decision to begin the approval process for Sweden and Finland as NATO members serves as a double-edged sword.
“On one hand, it has strengthened the role of NATO as a fundamental pillar of European security. On the other hand, it marks a reshuffling of the security arrangements between Russia and Europe, sowing the seeds of uncertainties for European security order.”
Jeffrey Sachs, a professor at Columbia University who served as an adviser to three United Nations secretaries general, believes that the real trigger of the Russia-Ukraine conflict was constant NATO expansion.
He also said that he disagrees with NATO’s accusation that China poses a challenge to the values, interests or security of NATO countries.
“China is nearly one-fifth of the world’s population, a great civilization, and with cultural heritage and wisdom that contributes notably to all of humanity”, Sachs pointed out.
At the summit, NATO formally defined China for the first time as a challenge in its “Strategic Concept” for the next decade, prompting grave concerns and expressions of firm opposition from Beijing.
“It is NATO that poses systemic challenges to world security and stability,” Zhao Lijian, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said at a news conference.
He Zhigao, a researcher at the Institute of European Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the “absolute security” for itself pursued by NATO risks plunging the world into a new round of “wars and conflicts”.
The bloc is losing its appeal by trying to sell its “security anxiety” to developing countries, He said.
Mustafa Hyder Sayed, executive director of the Pakistan-China Institute, a think tank in Islamabad, said NATO’s tilt toward Asia is built on shaky foundations.
In this approach, Washington and its allies have decided to jump on the new Cold War bandwagon, Sayed said. “Unfortunately, this will make the region more insecure.”