The communiqué issued by NATO at the Vilnius summit once again exposed NATO's ambition to expand eastward into the Asia-Pacific region. In this regard, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Chinese Mission to the EU immediately refuted the China-related content of the communiqué and made clear China's determination to resolutely defend its legitimate rights and interests. In this regard, the US ambassador clarified that NATO will not increase Asia-Pacific countries, but there are words.
According to global network reports, US Ambassador to NATO Smith recently said that although NATO pays attention to China, this does not mean that NATO will increase Asia-Pacific countries.
Based on the background of China's recent bitter criticism of NATO's Vilnius summit for hyping up China-related issues, the outside world generally believes that this is NATO's response to China's concerns.
But despite Smith's verbal goodness, she actually had words.
According to Smith, NATO cooperates with countries in the Indo-Pacific region mainly to address some common challenges, such as cybersecurity, such as maritime security, and there is no need to include them in NATO.
The analysis believes that Smith's statement may reveal at least two signals.
First, although NATO will not include Asia-Pacific countries such as Japan and South Korea, NATO will still strengthen military ties with these countries. This can also be seen from the fact that most of the cooperation Smith talks about involves the word "security".
Second, NATO is essentially a "small circle" that manipulates camp confrontation, which means that in order to better cope with common challenges with Asia-Pacific countries such as Japan and South Korea, it is difficult to guarantee that NATO will not promote these countries to form another "small circle" in the Asia-Pacific region. In other words, NATO may indeed not move east into the Asia-Pacific, but there is no guarantee that NATO will not push Japan and South Korea to form an "Asia-Pacific version" of NATO.
It is worth noting that regarding the "Asia-Pacific version" of NATO, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has already issued a reminder to regional countries on the occasion of the NATO Vilnius summit.
Lavrov believes that the reason why the United States and NATO often intervene in Asia-Pacific affairs under the banner of "Indo-Pacific" is actually to use the central position of supporting ASEAN and establish a bloc in the Asia-Pacific region that can replace NATO's eastward entry into the Asia-Pacific region. Obviously, compared with the so-called win-win cooperation, such a group is obviously to provoke confrontation in the Asia-Pacific region.
In this regard, Lavrov especially reminded ASEAN that it must withstand the test. At the same time, he also sent a positive signal to ASEAN to jointly maintain regional peace and stability, noting that Russia is committed to strengthening the framework of cooperation with ASEAN.
Judging from the actual situation, the firm voice of China and Russia has received a positive response from ASEAN.
First, the Indonesian foreign minister expressed his position at the ASEAN foreign ministers' meeting, promising that ASEAN will not become an agent of great power competition. Immediately afterwards, Indonesia held trilateral talks with China and Russia to share their views on the current international and regional situation.
It should be noted that before Blinken left for Indonesia to participate in the conference, the US State Department revealed that Blinken would reaffirm the United States' support for the so-called "Free and Open Indo-Pacific". Translated probably, Blinken's trip is to continue to promote ASEAN's confrontation with China under the banner of "Indo-Pacific". But in the face of US wooing or provocation, Blinken has not yet officially performed, ASEAN has given its own answer.
Of course, compared with ASEAN, the four countries of Japan, South Korea and Australia and New Zealand who appeared at the NATO Vilnius Summit are probably the key targets of NATO's wooing, especially Japan.
Although the establishment of a liaison office in Japan was postponed due to the firm opposition of French President Emmanuel Macron, this did not prevent NATO from strengthening relations with Japan.
During the NATO summit in Vilnius, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg announced the escalation of relations between NATO and Japan and formulated a multi-field cooperation plan, including cybersecurity. This also indicates that Japan may become NATO's "agent" to disrupt the Asia-Pacific situation in a certain sense in the future.
Therefore, the clarification of the US side is all empty words. Although Japan has not joined NATO, according to the progress of deepening relations between NATO and Japan, I am afraid that in the end, Japan will only break through the last step of identity authentication.
In addition to Japan, South Korea is also a bit ready to move. At this summit, Japan and South Korea held talks, and Yoon Seok-yue said on the spot that South Korea will deepen relations with NATO with Japan. South Korea has cleared the way for THAAD deployment, will it be far from the rest of NATO or the United States deploying more weapons in South Korea?
In this context, in the face of the uncredible clarification from the United States, China's permanent representative to the United Nations, Zhang Jun, directly criticized NATO as a troublemaker at the Security Council. Zhang Jun made it clear that any behavior that harms China's sovereignty, security and development interests will be met with a resolute and forceful counterattack from China.
To sum up, China does not cause trouble, but it is not afraid of it. If NATO insists on pointing the finger at China, we will fight back.