Japan’s defense minister wants Washington to “unite” its web of informal alliances in Asia into a formal military bloc

A senior US State Department official has said that it is “too early” to talk about building a NATO-style bloc in Asia, after Japanese Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba called on Washington to discuss the matter in more depth. 

Ishiba, who is a leading candidate to succeed Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, called last week for the creation of an “Asian version of NATO” by “uniting” its various security arrangements in the region into a formal defense pact. “At least we should deepen our discussions on this topic,” he said.

Speaking at a conference in Washington, DC on Tuesday, Assistant US Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific Daniel Kritenbrink shot down Ishiba’s suggestion.

“It’s too early to talk about collective security in that context, and [the creation of] more formal institutions,” Kritenbrink said, according to Japan’s Nikkei newspaper. “What we’re focused on is investing in the region’s existing formal architecture and continuing to build this network of formal and informal relationships. And then we’ll see where that goes.”

An Asian NATO “is not what we’re looking for in the region,” an anonymous US official told Nikkei. 

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While the official said that the US wants to avoid creating a “bloc-style alliance” in the Asia-Pacific region, Washington has spent decades building a web of partnerships and multilateral agreements in the area that its rivals – particularly Beijing – see as steps toward a de-facto “Asian NATO.” 

The AUKUS pact between Australia, the UK, and the US, and the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue between Australia, India, Japan, and the US have both been slammed by China as attempts by Washignton to “provoke confrontation” in the region. NATO’s increased cooperation with Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand has also been condemned by Beijing, with Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian calling on the bloc’s leaders in July to “stop creating tensions, peddling the Cold War mentality and provoking bloc confrontation in the Asia-Pacific.”

Russia, China, and North Korea have all criticized the defense treaties that the US maintains with South Korea and Japan. Joint drills between the US, South Korean, and Japanese militaries have increased in scale and frequency, and have “anti-Russian and anti-Chinese undertones,” Georgy Zinoviev, the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s First Asia Department, warned last week.

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Ishiba’s proposal has also been criticized within Japan. “The gist of NATO is to collectively protect a member state from armed attack by a common foreign enemy,” Toshimitsu Motegi, who is also in the running to succeed Kishida, told Nikkei. “Unlike Europe, Asia is made up of countries with diverse cultures and political systems. Each country has different relations with China.”

Kishida, who has also declared that Japan must “strengthen its cooperation with NATO and its partners,” announced last month that he would step down as prime minister and leader of the Liberal Democratic Party (LPR) amid dire approval ratings. The LPR will hold an internal vote to choose Kishida’s successor on September 27.