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MODERATOR: Thank you, ma’am. We’ll go another live question, this time to Sachiyo Sugita from NHK. Sachiyo, please go ahead.
QUESTION: Hello. Thank you very much. I’d like to – since I’m a reporter from Japan, I’d like to ask how U.S. NATO views (inaudible) of the Indo-Pacific region and Japan’s role in this region. And also I’d like to ask, are there conversations still going on about the Japan (inaudible) or are you seeking other ways for cooperation?
AMBASSADOR SMITH: Well, let me first say at the top that increasingly we find – we, NATO – find ourselves engaged in more and more conversations with our partners in the Indo-Pacific because of the shared security challenges that we face. Just as I noted a few minutes ago, the shared security challenges that we face with our partners in the Caucasus, we find ourselves reaching out to our friends in the Indo-Pacific to talk about the ways in which both the PRC and Russia are relying on a very similar list of hybrid tactics. We see the PRC and Russia relying on the use of disruptive technology or misinformation, disinformation, both relying on malicious cyber attacks.
So we find tremendous value in opportunities to sit down with our friends in the Indo-Pacific and share those best practices, understand how our friends in the Indo-Pacific are grappling with the challenges posed by the PRC, which in many ways mirror the challenges that allies here in Europe are facing challenges from Russia.
So this is a region that we find ourselves engaging more and more. As I noted at the top, we will welcome our four Indo-Pacific partners to this ministerial tomorrow and Thursday. And I wouldn’t at all be surprised to find these four countries at the Washington Summit later this summer in July.
The last thing I’ll say on this particular matter is that one of the ways in which we’re describing kind of the world that NATO is grappling with is “one theater.” And what we mean by that is that the world cannot necessarily be chopped up into geographic regions, where only Europe or only the Indo-Pacific or only another area of the world is grappling with a particular security challenge. A lot of the security challenges we face today don’t have any geographic boundaries, which speaks to the need to engage partners around the world on things like cyber security, which aren’t limited to any particular geographic location or region.
So yes, we do find tremendous value. The signal we’re getting from the Indo-Pacific partners is that they also see tremendous value in this partnership. And we’re so grateful for the support that some of these countries in the Indo-Pacific are providing to our friends in Ukraine. And that goes without saying.
On the NLO, we continue to look at a variety of ways to strengthen our partnerships with our friends in the Indo-Pacific, and that’s just one example. But we’re looking at a whole array of ways in which we can deepen that important partnership.
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Source: U.S. Department of State
Speaker: Ambassador Julianne Smith, U.S. Permanent Representative to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
Format: Digital Press Briefing
China Policy Research 