The media’s coverage of the July 11-12 NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania largely centered on Ukraine’s NATO membership bid and President Volodymyr Zelensky’s frustration over not being offered a clear-cut timetable for joining the alliance. But behind the headlines, another significant story about the meeting went largely unnoticed: NATO is continuing to gradually move toward the Asia-Pacific region to counter China’s increasing power. For the second consecutive year, Japan and South Korea, which are not NATO members, were invited to attend the annual summit.