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China’s ASEAN Ambassador Warns U.S. About the Dangers of Encircling China the Way NATO Did With Russia

by Eric Olander
File image of Deng Xijun, China's ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Image via Xinhua.

Chinese anxiety about being encircled by the United States and its allies goes back decades but is taking on a new urgency today amid the ongoing war in Eastern Europe. Almost immediately after Russian forces invaded Ukraine, Chinese officials began to draw stark parallels between what it perceives as the key reason for the war, NATO’s expansion to the Russian border, and its own situation in Asia with the emergence of a number of U.S.-led blocs that Beijing feels directly threaten its national security.

China now draws a direct comparison between NATO in Europe and the regional security groups in Asia that have emerged in recent years to confront China in the Asia Pacific region which includes the Quad (US/IND/JPN/AUS), the Five Eyes Alliance (US/CAN/UK/NZL/AUS) and AUKUS (US/AUS/GBR).

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