NATO becomes OTAN

By Daryl Guppy

The NATO logo dominated meetings at the 75th anniversary conference in Washington last week. The logo includes the French name for the organization, "OTAN." The final communique at the anniversary conference had some wondering if OTAN was an acronym for "Oriental Territory Attack Node."

The final communique was unrestrained in its attack on China across a range of issues and the double standard of the West was on full display. The summit declaration says NATO allies remain open to constructive engagement with China, but the subtext is that this requires China's compliance with Western demands.

Notably missing from the discussion and commentary was any condemnation of the United States, and its European allies, for the continued provision of weapons to Israel in defiance of the binding International Court of Justice (ICJ) genocide rulings that oblige UN members not to do so.

The concluding communique is an example of the selective application of the so-called rules-based international order. While it has long been the case that individual countries like the U.S. and the UK ignore UN rulings, this is the first time that the major powers of the West have collectively decided to ignore a binding ICJ ruling. In the case of the United States, this goes as far as enabling Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to travel to the United States to address Congress despite being arraigned by the ICJ for his role in enabling war crimes in Gaza. However, similar ICJ rulings against Russian President Vladimir Putin are fully enforced by the United States.

What is significant is the consistent thread that undermines the authority of the United Nations and the legitimacy of the global order. The selective application of rulings adds significantly to regional and global insecurity as it confirms contempt for the rule of law.

Despite evidence to the contrary, the meeting persistently promoted the idea that the situation in Ukraine is somehow comparable to the situation in Asia and the South China Sea and as such called for a military response from NATO/OTAN.

The NATO collective agreement is an artifact of the Cold War and predicated on the idea of Europe in particular coming under attack. The mooted expansion of NATO is also based on the idea that China will attack its neighbors. It's an idea that suits the domestic political agenda of Joe Biden and Donald Trump, as well as the American economy, which relies on a bedrock of defense industries which in turn rely on continuous conflict.

European support for a NATO expansion into Asia comes primarily from the former colonial powers – the UK, France along with the Netherlands and Germany. This lusting after vanquished empires is an unwelcome assertion of outdated colonial thinking. Much of the region has achieved independence from colonial rule and has no desire to see it return. Those islands and countries still under colonial-style rule, particularly the French possessions, are actively re-assessing the benefits of these arrangements and finding them wanting.

The rise of the Global South in the Asia-Pacific is evidenced by an increasing level of unrest in response to persistent failures to acknowledge and address long-term unresolved social issues. This is not welcomed by the former colonial masters, so they become willing participants in NATO's Asian expansion by projecting on China their own imperial desires.

The world viewed through the NATO lens is a world of threat, territorial expansion and conflict. The NATO anniversary conference communique applies this militarized perspective to the ASEAN region and denies China the legitimate right to respond to their increased military activity in the South China Sea.

The NATO conference was promoted as a collective effort to strengthen "peace and security" but the language and agenda of the meeting was a direct contrast to the language and agenda of the recent Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting where the emphasis was on the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. The principles are mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual non-aggression, non-interference in each other's internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence.

Any NATO expansion east will have a formal name but the cynics may be correct in identifying OTAN – "Oriental Territory Attack Node" – as a precursor of intent. The Washington meeting, with the strong support of Japan, nurtured the idea of NATO becoming a broader instrument of U.S. foreign policy applied outside of the European context and covering the physical, cyber and economic theaters. That is a future risk to China's legitimate interests.

Daryl Guppy, a special commentator on current affairs for CGTN, is an international financial technical analysis expert. He has provided weekly Shanghai Index analyses for mainland Chinese media for more than a decade. Guppy appears regularly on CNBC Asia and is known as "The Chart Man." He is a former national board member of the Australia China Business Council.