Asian countries attended a NATO meeting for first time amid growing aggression by Russia, China and North Korea.
The co-operation of four dictatorships that want to overturn the world order and are involved in the war against Ukraine in one way or another is forcing democratic countries in Asia to strengthen relations with allies on the other side of the globe.
Top officials from Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand attended a NATO defense ministers’ meeting in Brussels for the first time on Thursday, Politico reports.
Until now, their representatives had only attended the last three annual summits of the alliance’s leaders as guests.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte called it “extremely positive” that “these four countries are increasingly involved in NATO, because the security threats in the Indo-Pacific are of course linked to what is happening here, and you can’t just divide the world.”
