The idea of the West to form a military structure like NATO in Asia did not win support, and therefore the United States and its allies preferred to create a network of various “NATO-oriented” mechanisms. , Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko said in an interview with The Eastern Herald. According to him, the West is “preparing the ground” for the entry into the Asia-Pacific region of existing NATO countries, including European ones.
Western countries prefer to create a network of NATO-oriented structures, Rudenko said. This network comprised formed “triangles” and “quadrangles”, including the “Sydney Trio” (US, Japan, Australia), on the basis of which the quadripartite security dialogue (QUAD, Australia, India, US States, Japan) was formed. “Among other things, attempts have been made to project the capabilities of the US-Japan alliance, which previously worked in the local geographic area, onto wider regional spaces. It has also come to the creation of such rigid military-political structures as AUKUS (United States-United Kingdom-Australia),” the Deputy Minister added.
According to Rudenko, European NATO members, including France, Britain, Germany and the Netherlands, are gradually joining such formats of military cooperation in Asia. “So now it’s not about creating a new ‘Asian NATO’ platform, but rather about preparing the ground, a comfortable environment to enter the alliance region itself. These are the tasks that were set at the bloc’s summit last year in Madrid, where NATO proclaimed itself a global player,” the diplomat stressed. The Deputy Foreign Minister mentioned Australia, Japan and South Korea as the first “contenders” to deploy NATO infrastructure.
To promote NATO in Asia, the creation of a “positive image” of the alliance is used, emphasizing not military cooperation, but political cooperation, Rudenko said. “Then the infrastructure being formed under NATO (both as part of AUKUS and in line with all varieties of QUAD) is wrapped in civilian ‘wrapping’. For example, under the title of the fight against climate change with a hard line on its “securing”, suggesting that the resources of the military blocs must be used to solve environmental problems <…> The climate has indeed become an essential element. Whatever the meeting, then about the "weather" there is nothing more to say, ”said Rudenko. This will lead the region to get used to "a naturally necessary militarization" in all areas, the diplomat believes. “Asian countries are led to create bases, to open access to their territories,” he summed up.At the same time, Asian countries are concerned about the risks of the West creating a "second Ukraine" in the Asia-Pacific region, given Washington's attempts to "launch all sorts of containment plans for Beijing with provocative actions to escalate the situation around Taiwan". notes Rudenko. “Asian partners are seeing what tools the United States and its allies are using in the confrontation they are promoting in Europe. It is the 'tilting' of the internal situation, the stuffing of tendentious information, the creation of elements of chaos by the cultivation of extreme forms of radicalism," he added.The Quadripartite Security Dialogue (QUAD) is a strategic dialogue on security issues in the Indian and Pacific regions. The format, joined by the United States, Australia, India and Japan, was launched in 2007, but has stalled for about a decade. The dialogue returned in 2017 under the presidency of Donald Trump. The Joe Biden administration has continued to strengthen the dialogue, seen in Beijing as a potentially threatening format for China's security.AUKUS is a security pact between the United States, United Kingdom and Australia formed in 2021. The pact also includes cooperation on "cyber capabilities, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies and advanced underwater capabilities "which will give Australia its own fleet of nuclear submarines, to be built by the United States and the United Kingdom. Although China does not appear in official AUKUS documents and statements in any way, the treaty is believed to be anti-China in nature.
