Nikkei-NATO To Boost Links w/Asian Partners, Could Open Tokyo Office

Nikkei is reporting that NATO plans to enhance its links with four major Indo-Pacific partners - namely Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea - through the preparation of Individually Tailored Partnership Programs (ITPPs). Under these programs, NATO and the 'AP4' as these countries are known will boost cooperation on areas such as cybersecurity, space, and combating disinformation.

• Nikkei also reports that a NATO liaison office could be opened in Tokyo, with the express task of implementing the four ITPPs. This is seen as a potential route to curtail French opposition to the initial liaison office plan, which Paris saw as antagonistic towards China and other Asian regional organisations such as ASEAN.
• For the first time all AP4 leaders will be in attendance at the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania from 11-12 July.
• Nikkei notes that lat year in a strategic document, "...NATO detailed the threat China poses for the first time. Beijing's stated ambitions and coercive policies "challenge our interests, security and values," the document said. Specifically, NATO said China's projection of power, military buildup, malicious hybrid and cyber operations and its confrontational rhetoric and disinformation "target allies and harm alliance security."