Biden, Quad and NATO: Hands off Asean
Last week, the US-China dialogue had been on to a fiery start in Anchorage, Alaska, attended by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, national security adviser Jake Sullivan, Chinese Director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs Yang Jiechi and Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
The uneasy dialogue appears to set the stage of a new round of escalation by the US, its Western and Pacific allies, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on China and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) under the presidency of US President Joseph R. Biden.
In the guise of pursuing a rules-based order to maintain global stability, the US side has intimated concerns relating to the internal affairs of China, such as Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and boasted the results of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue leaders’ summit.
In response, the Chinese side rebuked classical American exceptionalism as displayed by Blinken and Sullivan, by pushing back on its claim of influence and dominance in Asia, as China views that the same strategic Asian allies, South Korea and Japan, relied upon by the US are similarly engaged with China as its second- and the third-largest trading partners.
More importantly, the Chinese side stated that ASEAN has now become China’s largest trading partner, overtaking the European Union and the United States.
This is the current context of US escalation in which foreign interference in the Indo-Pacific, through the Quad and NATO, should be viewed.
Even prior to the Biden administration, Robert O’Brien, national security adviser to former President Donald Trump, in late January called the Quad possibly “the most important relationship we’ve established since NATO.”
In fact, various European governments such as Germany, France and the Netherlands have each drawn-up strategies in the Indo-Pacific.
No less than NATO calls on itself to “devote much more time, political resources and action to the security challenges posed by China” as it considers Beijing “a full-spectrum systemic rival.”
A panel composed of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg justifies this pivot towards China and the Pacific by stating that NATO should ““monitor and defend against any Chinese activities that could impact collective defense, military readiness or resilience” in the area, as
threats to the security of the North Atlantic can originate anywhere in the world.
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In the diplomatic front, the European Union continues to seek observer status in the East Asia Summit.
All of these initiatives point to a growing interest, in the form of seeking institutionalized presence in the Indo-Pacific’s regional and internal affairs.
But with this interest comes the same interventionist mindset similar to American exceptionalism displayed in the US-China dialogue. The NATO panel on China views Beijing’s “approach to human rights and international law challenges the fundamental premise of a rules-based international order.”
Stoltenberg made an even worse statement: “China does not share our values. It undermines human rights.”
As the US, Quad and NATO seeks to contain a rising China, there should be no doubt that what these entities seek to do is to undermine or influence all formal and informal platforms in which Beijing currently exhibits a leading role.
This includes ASEAN, EAS, and perhaps even the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). But while Washington and the Quad may be granted legitimate status in officially dealing with regional concerns, it is a wonder NATO can justify its relevance in dealing with clearly regional issues within the Indo-Pacific.
Outside of NATO’s concerns for non-North Atlantic attacks which may arise outside its borders, it has absolutely no role nor legitimacy to intervene on regional concerns such as tensions in the South and East China Seas.
As we had previously stated, all it takes is a miscalculated maritime incident along international waters for military confrontation with Beijing to reach unmanageable levels.
With the insistence of the US on its own strategy of freedom of navigation in the South China Sea with the clear objective of involving more international players, a military incident in these waters is a question of when, not a question of if.
There is no quibbling with this: NATO in the ASEAN is military interference in the region, nothing else.