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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 26, in Washington. (AFP/Yonhap News)

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken suggested that countries of the Asia-Pacific such as South Korea may be invited to the NATO summit scheduled to take place in Spain in late June.

During a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Tuesday, Blinken was fielding a question from Republican Sen. William Hagerty, who previously served as the US ambassador to Japan, when he said, “At the NATO summit that [US] President [Joe Biden] will attend, the AP Four and Japan will be there.” He also said, “One of the things we have been advancing is increasing NATO focus on working with partners that are not part of NATO, including what we call the Asia-Pacific Four.”

The AP Four refers to four NATO partners in the Asia-Pacific: South Korea, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. Previously, foreign ministers of non-NATO countries including the AP Four attended a foreign minister’s meeting of NATO held in Brussels on April 7 to discuss sanctions against Russia and supporting Ukraine. At the time, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg had said that NATO members “agreed to step up cooperation with our partners in the Asia-Pacific, because the crisis [of the war in Ukraine] has global ramifications.”

The upcoming NATO summit will be held in Madrid, Spain, from June 29 to June 30. Whether state leaders of the four Asia-Pacific states will attend the meeting is unclear. Blinken didn’t elaborate on whether the four Asia-Pacific countries promised to attend the NATO summit, or whether the US or NATO already sent these countries an invitation to participate.

Blinken also stated during the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing that he will “speak publicly and in some detail” about the US’ comprehensive strategy against China in the coming weeks. The Republican Party has consistently criticized the administration of President Joe Biden for lacking an official strategy against China.

Having released in February its “Indo-Pacific Strategy,” which centered on keeping China in check, the Biden administration vouched to prepare a separate strategy against China, but the process has been delayed due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

By Lee Bon-young, Washington correspondent

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