The G7 summit has just ended, and the NATO summit will be held in Madrid, Spain on June 28. In addition to the participation of NATO member states including the United States, this summit also specially invited several Indo-Pacific countries to participate, including Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Australia, India, Indonesia and other countries, showing that the focus of the NATO summit is not only on the Russian-Ukrainian war , and also included China and the Indo-Pacific region into the core topics of the summit. The invited Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Australia and India are all important allies of the United States in the Indo-Pacific region.
This shows that the United States hopes that NATO can deepen its relations with Indo-Pacific countries and strengthen its concern for the Indo-Pacific region to counter China's rapidly expanding influence in the region. The Financial Times industry email list reported that a U.S. official said Washington's push for Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and Australia to participate in the NATO summit was part of the Biden administration's strategy to build and expand a camp of "like-minded" allies aimed at countering China.
The Financial Times also reported that the deepening of interaction between NATO and the Indo-Pacific countries is because US allies fear that a single US alone will not be enough to ensure their security. Confidence among Indo-Pacific allies in Washington has been undermined by the "American First" Trump administration, which has threatened to withdraw U.S. troops from South Korea and Japan in the past. Furthermore, Russia's aggression against Ukraine and concerns that China could take similar action against Taiwan demonstrate the need for more options to strengthen deterrence.