In this work, a nonlinear coupling mechanism, in which the mode‐converted kinetic Alfve´n waves beat with each other to resonantly modify the resistive tearing mode characteristics, has been investigated. Using the variational as well as the asymptotic methods, it is shown that newm=1 andm=2 tearing instabilities are excited with significantly enhanced growth rates varying as fractional powers of the pump amplitude. For rather moderate Alfve´n wave intensity and a typical choice of tokamak parameters, the calculated growth rates turn out to be large and fall in the range 104–106sec−1.