July 17, 2023

NATO Can Help Create a Global Security Architecture

By: Dr. Duyeon Kim

NATO’s annual summit last week in Vilnius, Lithuania, was significant beyond discussions about Russia, Ukraine’s membership, and NATO’s future. The leaders from NATO’s four Asia-Pacific partners (loosely called the “Asia-Pacific Four” or “AP4”)—South Korea, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand—also participated in their second consecutive NATO summit.

The time is ripe for the NATO-AP4 partnership to become a critical linchpin for global security and stability.

Their attendance followed last year’s meeting in Madrid, during which NATO adopted its new Strategic Concept (the first since 2010), including China for the first time. It called Beijing a “systemic challenge” to Euro-Atlantic security, in tandem with the Madrid declaration, which described China as a systemic competitor. This year’s Vilnius communique stated that NATO is taking steps to protect against China’s “coercive tactics” and called on Beijing to play a “constructive role” as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council in Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine—something that Beijing has shown little sign of doing so far.

Read the full article from Foreign Policy.

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