> why not just expand the nato alliance to include them? this has been discussed in nato circles for decades now, besides having to rewrite the charter significantly requiring unanimous consent from all nato parties to allow it. > a number of leading experts told foreign policy that natos remit cannot expand into asia without rewriting the treaty that led to its formation.  > the scope of nato is clearly marked in the washington treaty, north of the tropic of cancer. nato cant take new members unless member states change the whole treaty, and that is very unlikely, said janne leino, the program manager for foreign and security policy at german think tank konrad-adenauer-stiftung. > mirna galic, a senior policy analyst at the u.s. institute of peace, said natos charter specifies that new members can be only from europe. > europeans have rarely agreed on the best way forward to deal with china, and countries have based their policies on what suits their respective national interests. france blocked the opening of a nato liaison office in tokyo to stay on beijings good side. germany, for its part, only recently released its firstand cautiously wordedchina security strategy.
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