NATO is wooing Australia and China is not happy about it

Brussels:​ China’s economic support for Russia during the war in Ukraine brought the security of the Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic closer than ever before, NATO boss Mark Rutte says, warning the two regions must co-operate to address the threat Beijing poses.

But NATO’s increased focus on the Indo-Pacific region is irritating China, which has warned that the alliance formed to defend Europe and the North Atlantic risks conflict by turning its gaze to the south.

A German soldier takes part in a joint exercise with Dutch troops near Gardelegen, Germany, this week. Credit: Getty Images

“It’s absolutely clear that we cannot be naive about China,” says Rutte, secretary-general of the North Atlantic alliance, which comprises 30 European states as well as the US and Canada.

“We know that [China] helps and supports the Russians’ warfare through war effort, through sanction circumvention, through delivery of dual-use goods. They are an integral part of the war effort.

“And now North Korea [is] sending its soldiers to Europe to fight a war here,” Rutte added. “We know that the Russians are repaying them, not only with money, but also with technology, which, in the end, is also posing a threat to the United States, and to the whole of NATO territory and to the Indo-Pacific.”

While China maintains its official position of neutrality towards the Ukraine conflict, its actions say otherwise. Ukraine’s capture on Tuesday of two Chinese citizens who, along with four others, were fighting as mercenaries in the country’s east grabbed global headlines, but it is the critical role of Beijing exports in Russia’s arms industry that has kept its war machine ticking.

Technical personnel inspect a French Atlantique-2 submarine hunter aircraft after a NATO exercise in the Black Sea.Credit: AP

Vehicles, machine tools and raw materials such as ball bearings and strategic minerals have become indispensable to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war efforts. Chinese cars and trucks have filled the void left by the sanctions-enforced departure of Western auto makers from Russia.

Official Chinese customs data shows a sharp increase in exports to Russia, with the total value of goods exceeding $US80 billion ($133 billion) last year – double what it was in 2021, the year before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

This surge in trade, especially of “dual-use” goods that can serve both civilian and military purposes, has almost single-handedly kept Russia’s battle-stricken defence industry afloat. These items, including electronics, machinery and components for advanced weaponry, accounted for roughly two-thirds of all Chinese exports to Russia.

Australia, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand, as part of the so-called Indo-Pacific 4, have stood steadfast with NATO allies since Russia invaded Ukraine. The nations’ leaders have gathered at every major NATO summit and meeting since.

NATO officials stress it’s because of shared values, wider co-operation and sharing experiences while combating cyber threats, economic coercion and disinformation campaigns – and not because of deep-rooted concerns about the China challenge.

But Beijing has since attempted to link NATO’s increased interest in the Indo-Pacific with the growing likelihood of conflict so that it can blame its aggressive actions on NATO, just as Russia sought to pin responsibility for its invasion of Ukraine on the alliance.

China’s state-run media published an article in April last year that argued “where NATO goes, war is most likely”. Yet NATO officials stress that its role is largely defensive and aimed at maintaining peace and deterring aggression.

David Sacks, an Asia studies fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, says there are two other potential flashpoints in the Indo-Pacific that are animating NATO’s focus on the region.

“NATO members are concerned that if China uses force against Taiwan and the US comes to its direct defence, Washington would have to make difficult trade-offs that would compel its NATO allies to shoulder more of the burden in deterring Russia,” he wrote recently.

“In addition, if deterrence in the Taiwan Strait fails, the economic consequences for Europe would be devastating.”

Despite Beijing borrowing oft-repeated lines of misinformation from the Kremlin, NATO cannot expand to include any countries from the Indo-Pacific as members. The NATO treaty states that mutual defence only applies to member states’ territories in Europe, North America, Turkey and islands in the Atlantic north of the Tropic of Cancer.

There is also no consensus within NATO that the alliance should even become more active in the Indo-Pacific.

Divisions remain on the extent to which China poses a fundamental challenge to European security. Many say with war raging on European soil and many NATO members struggling to build up their defences, now is not the time to take on additional obligations.

Sacks says NATO members and Indo-Pacific partners should pursue tailored co-operation, heavily focusing on industrial partnerships to improve so-called interoperability and interchangeability of weaponry.

The Australian government, too, believes this is a critical opportunity and has recently sent Angus Campbell, a retired general who served as chief of the Defence Force, to Brussels as Australia’s new ambassador. That appointment has not gone unnoticed among allied nations as a sign Australia is serious about working together more closely.

‘No interest’ in NATO reinvention

Veteran Labor figures such as former prime minister Paul Keating and one-time foreign minister Bob Carr have warned against any NATO presence or partnership in the region. The pair has been increasingly vocal about Australia’s reliance on the United States.

Keating has labelled Rutte’s predecessor, Jens Stoltenberg, a “supreme fool” for his push to increase the alliance’s ties with Asia in an attempt to contain China. Carr told a recent World Peace Summit that Australia should invest in diplomatic and economic efforts in Asia and not Europe.

‘The fact that we are here together, working together, in itself is the message.’

Mark Rutte, NATO secretary-general

“Australia has no interest in seeing NATO reinvented as some tool to contain China,” he said.

However, experts argue if war breaks out in the Indo-Pacific, the economic costs to NATO members would probably surpass those associated with the war in Ukraine; hence, NATO has an interest in contributing to deterrence in the Indo-Pacific and preventing China from providing even greater military assistance to Russia.

But Rutte, despite the misgivings of many and the continued annoyance of Beijing, is adamant the alliance must deepen ties with like-minded democratic nations in the Indo-Pacific.

“As global competition intensifies, we will continue to strengthen our Indo-Pacific partnerships,” he said at the meeting of NATO foreign ministers last week.

“We are getting more and more flesh on the bones now in terms of exchanging insights on innovation; the battlefield ... we learn from what Japan and others are doing in the Pacific with their exercises.

“But the fact that we are here together, working together, in itself is the message.”

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