“If they touch NATO countries, we will respond,” US President Joe Biden said in early March.

This is the philosophy and raison d’etre of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), an alliance in which 30 countries in Europe and North America commit to respond with their joint military forces in the event of an external attack on one of them. .

In other words, NATO describes its nature as defensive. But some countries see it as a threat to their security.

Using this argument to justify a military invasion, Russia is the clearest example, but not the only one.

China is openly and increasingly expressing its distrust of the organization, despite the fact that its borders are thousands of kilometers away from NATO’s borders.

And with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the friction between the Asian giant and the US-led defense alliance intensified.

Like Moscow, Beijing blamed NATO for the conflict.

China’s Foreign Ministry accused the Western military alliance of putting Russia “against the wall” by accepting 14 new members, including countries neighboring the Slavic nation, since the end of the Cold War.

In response, NATO denounced the main power in Asia as “undermining the global order” in terms of security.

Jens Stoltenberg, the organization’s Norwegian secretary general, announced in April that the defense strategy will for the first time include China, more specifically “how its growing influence and coercive policies affect our security.”

From indifference to tension

Today, distrust, tension and mutual accusations dominate relations between Beijing and the alliance.

But it wasn’t always like that.

Gaining worldwide visibility during the 1999 Kosovo War, historian Jamie Shea, who served in various positions of responsibility at NATO between 1988 and 2018, says the relationship between the alliance and Beijing has been one of mutual indifference in recent years, and with periodic exchanges, the fruit of barely born.

“When China entered Afghanistan in 2003, they showed interest in NATO, but were relieved when they realized that it was not there as a permanent occupying power, but for stability and counter-terrorism purposes, and their interest in NATO faded,” he says.

The expert notes that “so far there has not been a NATO-China Council that allows both sides to meet regularly and discuss common challenges or mutual perceptions”.

Wang Huiyao, head of the Center for China and Globalization Studies (CGC) and adviser to the Chinese government, explains that because of its geographical distance, Beijing “should not have many common problems with NATO in principle.”

“But Beijing is worried when NATO makes a statement saying China is a potential threat,” he said.

“NATO is the USA”

Despite its remoteness and defensive nature, Wang argues the organization’s strategy contradicts China’s.

“China’s vision for the future is that globalization should go in the direction of economic integration, not military integration. In that sense, China does not like NATO’s US-led military expansion.”

The expert also believes that the conflicts between Beijing and the Atlantic alliance are “a reflection of the worsening relations between the United States and China over the past five or six years.”

“And the United States leads NATO, and certainly NATO largely reflects US decisions.”

Shea, on the other hand, believes that China has taken a stand against NATO enlargement for purely strategic reasons.

“As China adapts to the Russian narrative and the alleged supremacy of authoritarian values ​​over democracies, misrepresenting NATO’s reality becomes a convenient and easy tool for its foreign and domestic policy.”

But China’s main concern is not the expansion of the Atlantic military alliance into Eastern Europe.

What China Really Fears Most

China believes that the US really wants to bring NATO, or an extension of the alliance, to its doorstep.

At the end of April, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said, “NATO has destroyed Europe. Is it now trying to destroy Asia-Pacific and even the world?” he protested.

A month ago, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said: “The real aim of the US Indo-Pacific strategy is to establish a NATO branch in the region.”

Beijing officials have repeatedly made this accusation in recent months.

To understand this, you need to be familiar with two abbreviations: Aukus and Quad.

In late 2021, it was announced that the US and UK had formed Aukus, a defense agreement to help Australia acquire nuclear-powered submarines.

This is troubling China, which saw its relations with Australia as cordial until 2018, and it’s worsening, leading to tensions in areas ranging from territorial disputes in the South China Sea to the pandemic.

But what worries China most is the Quadruple Security Dialogue, better known as the Quad.

Created in 2007 and suspended for nearly a decade, Quad was revived in 2017 and is gaining more and more importance to this day.

It is a strategic forum for military cooperation and defense exercises between the United States, Australia, Japan and India.

Japan and India are two Asian powers rivaling China, and these two countries maintain tense territorial disputes both with themselves and with other states in the region such as the Philippines, Vietnam or Malaysia.

Therefore, China sees the Quartet not only as a challenge to its growing hegemony in the region, but also as a threat to its own security and a covert attempt by the US, together with Aukus, to build a NATO in its region.

Professor Wang, who represents the position of the Chinese government, thinks this is “concerned about NATO’s expansion into the Indo-Pacific region” and says attempts are being made to at least establish a “mini NATO in the region”. The regime does not want to accept it.

Jamie Shea, on the other hand, denies that US alliances in the Pacific have anything to do with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization: “NATO limits its expansion to the European continent and cannot be extended to a country in the Indonesian region of the Pacific”.

“Despite having partners in the region such as Japan, Australia and New Zealand, the pacts do not give NATO any role in the defense of these countries if they go to war against China,” he observes.

Global NATO?

But how absurd is the idea of ​​a NATO expanding beyond the borders of Europe and North America?

Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine has raised a hidden concern in the West and its allies: that China will do the same to Taiwan.

British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss spoke in favor of a “global NATO” in late April.

And he did it with China in mind.

“We need to stay ahead of threats in the Indo-Pacific by working with allies like Japan and Australia to ensure the Pacific is protected. We need to ensure that democracies like Taiwan can defend themselves,” he said.

Meanwhile, the leaders of 30 member states are working on NATO’s next “strategic concept” that will define its mission for the next ten years.

Its content will be revealed at the next Atlantic Alliance summit, which will be held in Madrid, Spain, on 29 and 30 June.

The document will define China’s weight amongst NATO’s international security threats and will be instrumental in correcting or further disrupting the complex relationship between the world’s most powerful military bloc and the world’s second largest power today.