NATO Emerges as a Platform for Coordinating Indo-Pacific Security Policies

The extent to which the transatlantic community can coordinate policies and relationships with regard to the Indo-Pacific -- including China – will be an important determining factor in the future of international security. At present, coordination works through the G7 and EU–US bilateralism. Recent research, however, suggests that NATO is under-appreciated as a convening and coordinating forum. Developments at NATO’s 75th anniversary summit in Washington in July suggest that the Alliance now has a good claim to be the leading institutional platform for Euro-Atlantic/Indo-Pacific policy coordination.

The main factor that has propelled NATO into this role is Beijing’s position on Russia’s war in Ukraine. China came onto the NATO agenda for the first time at the 2019 London summit, when the Alliance’s leaders declared that Beijing’s ‘growing influence and international policies present both opportunities and challenges that we need to address together’. 

The 2021 Summit Communiqué included two paragraphs on China, asserting that ‘China’s stated ambitions and assertive behaviour present systemic challenges to the rules-based international order and to areas relevant to Alliance security’. The 2022 Strategic Concept – adopted after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine – warned that China’s ‘stated ambitions and coercive policies challenge our interests, security and values’ and said the ‘deepening strategic partnership between the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation and their mutually reinforcing attempts to undercut the rules-based international order run counter to our values and interests’. 

At the recent Washington Summit, the Alliance declared China to be a ‘decisive enabler’ of Russia’s war against Ukraine, adding that it ‘continues to pose systemic challenges to Euro-Atlantic security’ in the form of malicious cyber and hybrid activities, including disinformation. Put simply: China’s foreign policy actions shape Europe’s security landscape. 

If the war in Ukraine has been a catalyst, the breadth of NATO’s membership is a second factor that endows it with advantages compared to other multilateral platforms. The 32-strong alliance not only brings Europeans together with Canada and the US, but it also brings even more European countries together than the EU’s 27. Institutions for transatlantic coordination such as the US–EU trade and technology council exclude important members of the transatlantic community such as Canada, the UK, Turkey and Norway. NATO might not be equipped to coordinate policy toward China in areas such as trade, regulations or sanctions, but its partnership format can include countries with relevant competency in those domains. At the Washington Summit, for example, the EU joined a meeting with NATO as a partner alongside four Indo-Pacific states. 

The third advantage NATO holds is its partnerships in the Indo-Pacific. In Washington, NATO brought together the so-called IP4 (Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea) for the third successive summit. All except Australia attended at the prime ministerial level. A meeting of the IP4 chaired by New Zealand discussed North Korea, tensions in the South China Sea, and China’s support for Russia. For a discussion on Ukraine, they were joined by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and the leaders issued a joint statement denouncing ‘the illegal military cooperation between Russia and North Korea, which undermines peace and stability to the Indo-Pacific and Europe’. 

None of the other institutions with a role in transatlantic coordination have anything approaching the IP4 as a partnership framework connecting the Euro-Atlantic with the Indo-Pacific. Each IP4 partner has its own bilateral agreements with NATO, committing to a range of cooperation activities tailor-made to their priorities (such as strategic communication, space, interoperability and non-proliferation). In addition, in Washington the IP4 agreed four new ‘flagship projects’ supporting Ukraine on military healthcare as well as fostering cooperation on cyber defence, countering disinformation, and technology such as AI. 

To be sure, NATO’s nascent coordination function is not without its critics. France has consistently opposed such a role for the Alliance. Prior to the 2023 summit, President Emmanuel Macron returned from Beijing cautioning Europeans against taking their cue from the US in response to a potential Taiwan crisis, and reiterating the idea of European ‘strategic autonomy’ with respect to China policy. Soon after, France reportedly vetoed the opening of a proposed NATO liaison office in Tokyo, insisting on the ‘geographic’ confinement of NATO activity to the Euro-Atlantic area. Chinese state media, which frequently criticises NATO as evidence of a ‘Cold War mentality’, unsurprisingly welcomed Macron’s veto. China’s Foreign Ministry likewise decried the references to Beijing in the 2024 Summit declaration as ‘a load of biases, smears and provocations’. 

A development largely missed in this debate is that the IP4 is beginning to function not merely as an extension of the NATO agenda on China but in a broader role, generating regionally stabilising effects. The value the IP4 partners place on NATO summits as an opportunity to meet and highlight the connectedness of what can seem like distant security threats is apparent from their high-level participation. There are few other mechanisms that bring Japan and South Korea together for security cooperation. IP4 statements on the Korean peninsula at the 2023 and 2024 summits indicate important shared concerns. In Washington, the four leaders expressed a commitment to taking the group forward as a forum for regional cooperation. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he plans to meet with IP4 foreign ministers outside of a NATO context later in the year, meaning the IP4 could become another part of the Indo-Pacific region’s ‘latticework’ of overlapping security arrangements.

Raising awareness about Indo-Pacific security concerns is neither a hierarchy with the US at the top, nor a one-way street – partners are shaping the agenda and influencing allies according to their own interests and priorities. And if predictions of a more consequential US ‘pivot’ of resources from Europe to the Indo-Pacific prove correct, that will only reinforce the need for a platform that can help both to align perspectives on the connectedness of each theatre and the overall balance of threats, and to broker practical cooperation.

This commentary was inspired by a dialogue held at the RUSI office in Brussels with representatives of NATO, the EU, member states and Indo-Pacific partners on NATO’s role in transatlantic coordination on China policy, conducted as part of a project on transatlantic cooperation supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. 

The views expressed in this Commentary are the authors’, and do not represent those of RUSI or any other institution.

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