NATO chief looks to talk on defence cooperation with Japan & South Korea, he can forget rest of Indo Pacific

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte

The chief of NATO said Wednesday the defence ministers from the alliance will discuss topics related to defence industrial cooperation with their counterparts from Indo-Pacific countries Japan and South Korea in an upcoming meeting.

Rightly so, because the ASEAN countries in Indo Pacific will just not be “interested” in any relationship with NATO.

The NATO ministers will discuss how to work with the four Indo-Pacific countries, which also include Australia and New Zealand, in fields such as “defence industrial production” and “innovation,” Secretary General Mark Rutte told a press conference. Though even Australia and New Zealand should be quite wary of NATO these days.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has invited the leaders from the Far East Asian and Oceanian countries to its summit since 2022, and asked the defence ministers from the four to attend a meeting with their NATO counterparts for the first time.

Ahead of the two-day defence ministerial talks starting Thursday in Brussels, Rutte said it is important to “start to sketch out what the next step should be in terms of building that relationship” between the NATO allies and the four partners in the Indo-Pacific.

Japan and NATO “share the same values” and “challenges,” Rutte said, noting that Tokyo has shown “extremely strong solidarity with Ukraine” in dealing with the conflict with Russia which began in 2022.

“We share concerns about China’s heavy military build-up,” Rutte added.Well its time Japan does a hard think on joining hands with a military bloc like NATO.