Communist China fears that NATO is expanding into a globe-girdling alliance while leaders of the 32 NATO member states, meeting at Washington, worry about the future of the alliance 75 years after its founding.

That contrast in concerns has emerged in sharp clarity while Beijing mounts a rhetorical barrage about the prospect for NATO merging with the network of Indo-Pacific countries whom Washington is bringing together in defense against Chinese expansionism.

“NATO extending tentacles into Asia-Pacific will only end in failure,” headlined the Chinese mouthpiece, Global Times.  “With NATO’s continuous expansion, it is evolving from a regional security alliance into a global organization.”

Lending a certain substance to  the charge, the leaders of America’s most important Asian allies, Japan and South Korea in northeast Asia and Australia and New Zealand on the southern flank, are all at Washington this week observing what NATO is doing and meeting one on one with leaders of crucial NATO friends.

Among the most vocal is South Korea’s president, Yoon Suk-yeol, who stopped off at Honolulu to visit the headquarters of American forces in the Pacific on the way to Washington. It was the first time in 29 years, as South Korea’s Yonhap News reported, that a South Korean president had visited the headquarters, renamed the Indo-Pacific command six years ago.

Mr. Yoon focused on North Korea, proclaiming “a steadfast combined defense readiness is more critical than ever” while North Korea’s “evolving nuclear and missile capabilities and continued provocations are threatening the Korean peninsula and the region.” 

Beside Mr. Yooon as he spoke were Admiral Samuiel Paparo, commander of the Indo-Pacific command, and General Paul LaCamera, commander of America’s 28,500 troops in Korea.

Although China was not mentioned, the Chinese left no doubt of the link between NATO and the Indo-Pacific.

“NATO has invited Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, and Australia for three consecutive years and attempted to form an ‘Asia-Pacific NATO,’” said the Global Times. “This organization, which originally claimed to be ‘defensive,’  is now trying to prove it can ‘protect’ the whole ‘Asia-Pacific’ region.”

Indo-Pacific leaders were not expected to criticize China directly while offering qualified support for President Zelensky in Ukraine’s war against Russia. 

The qualification is how much military aid each is expected to be willing to provide Ukraine while not officially bonding with NATO nations in Ukraine’s defense. 

South Korea, for instance, is shipping artillery shells to replenish diminished American stocks while America in turn ships shells to Ukraine. 

All the Indo-Pacific countries were sure to endorse whatever statement emerged from the confab even as underlings sought to paper over the reality that a Republican administration under President Trump, who has been critical of NATO, may take over in January. 

The Indo-Pacific grouping — not quite an alliance — has tightened in recent years with the emergence of a grouping that includes Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. Emissaries of the group, which goes by the acronym Aukus, were expected to meet separately from NATO, confirming their tight relationship.

Alliance partners, however, were disappointed that India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, chose to meet President Putin at Moscow just as NATO leaders were gathering at Washington. 

The meeting was seen as undermining the significance of another grouping, Quad Four, the quadrilateral dialogue including Australia, America, and Japan as well as India.

The Hindustan Times quoted a Pentagon spokesman as saying Washington would “continue to view India as a strategic partner”  and trusts India would encourage an  “enduring and just peace for Ukraine.” 

More practically, Mr. Modi thanked Mr. Putin for the oil and natural gas that India imports from Russia along with military aid, including fighter planes.