Japan argues that the war in Ukraine has destabilised the world, and has invited NATO into the Indo-Pacific to deter China. Since the end of the Cold War, NATO has acted as an extension of American power. Asians want the US present to balance China’s power, but that doesn’t mean they want a European military alliance operating in their region. NATO’s growing presence in the Pacific evokes a painful history that the western world has never confronted or fully acknowledged. Its presence in the Indo-Pacific can easily be construed as a new attempt to reassert western military domination of the region.
