East Asian countries should reject NATO’s expanding tentacles: media

SINGAPORE: JUNE 30 – East Asian countries should jointly reject the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)’s expansion of its tentacles to the Pacific Ocean, the Straits Times reported recently.

An article, entitled “Asia, say no to NATO” and written by Kishore Mahbubani, a distinguished fellow with the Asia Research Institute of the National University of Singapore, was published in the Opinion pages by the newspaper on June 25.

Mahbubani said in the article that NATO has identified China as a “systemic challenge” to areas “relevant to Alliance security” in its communique released after a meeting held in Brussels several weeks ago.

This implicit message clearly indicates that NATO would like to expand its tentacles beyond the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.

“All of us who live close to the Pacific Ocean, especially in East Asia, should be deeply concerned. If NATO comes to the Pacific, it only means trouble for us,” said the academic.

He said that firstly, NATO is not a “geopolitically wise organization.” It destabilized Europe in the process of desperately looking for new missions after its old mission in the Cold War was accomplished 30 years ago when it should have shut down.

Secondly, NATO’s behavior reflects the old adage: “If you are a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.” Since the end of the Cold War, NATO has dropped a massive amount of bombs on many countries, and many of the bombing missions were illegal under international law.

Thirdly, East Asia has developed. In the 30 years since the end of the Cold War, no bombs have been dropped anywhere in East Asia, said the academic.

“This is, therefore, the biggest danger we face in NATO expanding its tentacles from the Atlantic to the Pacific,” he said.

“It could end up exporting its disastrous militaristic culture to the relatively peaceful environment we have developed in East Asia,” he added.

 -XINHUA