The shadow of China hangs over the top of the Quad
From left to right: The foreign ministers of India (Subrahmanyam Jaishankar), Japan (Toshimitsu Motegi), Australia (Marise Payne) and the United States (Mike Pompeo) in a meeting about du Quad, on October 6, 2020 in Tokyo.
REUTERS - POOL
Text by: Jelena Tomic Follow
6 mins
This Friday March 12 is being held, for the first time since its creation, a virtual meeting at the highest level of the Quad (Quadrilateral Dialogue for Safety).
The alliance which brings together the United States, Australia, Japan and India aims in particular to thwart the rise of Chinese power in the Indo-Pacific zone.
Marianne Péron-Doise, researcher at the Strategic Research Institute of the Military School (Irsem) and lecturer at Sciences Po Paris, explains the challenges of this meeting.
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RFI: Marianne Péron-Doise, what is the role of the Quad?
Marianne Péron-Doise
: It is a forum for dialogue with four countries (United States, Australia, Japan and India) which aims to talk about security in Asia.
The Quad was created in 2007 at the initiative of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, on the sidelines of the meetings of the ten ASEAN countries and their annual forums.
Tokyo wanted to bring together neighboring countries or partners to go further in discussions on regional security and perhaps set up cooperation of an operational nature with the navies of these four countries.
Many observers point out this vague and informal side of Quad meetings, which do not have clear objectives.
Moreover, the group will very quickly be regarded with suspicion by other partners, and in particular China, which sees it as the meeting of countries very close to the United States.
In what geopolitical context is this virtual summit taking place?
In 2007, the regional situation did not clearly justify a very precise agenda for the four powers led by Japan.
Today, we are in a rather particular context since we have witnessed the rise of China, particularly in the maritime field, China claiming a large part of the South China Sea against, for example, the Philippines and Vietnam.
And the four Quad countries see these demands as a form of danger or threat to the freedom of navigation.
Hence this insistence on putting forward on the Quad's agenda, the protection of the freedom of navigation, respect for the law of the sea and a world order based on law.
But it is true that the Quad as it was able to function under the Trump administration gave the impression of a discreet "alliance" against China which would simply aim at trying to form a counterweight to the advances. military, maritime, but also economic of China in the region of the Indo-Pacific, with the project of “Belt and Road” (maritime route of silk) which clearly signals a very concrete expansion of China in the region.
The four powers of the Quad have very different approaches in their relationship with Beijing and in their geopolitical visions of the Indo-Pacific region. What will be the roadmap for this informal dialogue group?
It is certainly the desire to become more integrated into concrete regional security problems and not to give the impression of setting up an implicit anti-Chinese alliance of a military nature.
Australia, for example, did not follow the start of the Quad meetings and feared from 2010 to find itself embroiled in an anti-Chinese front, because China is an important economic partner of Canberra.
India has also shared this kind of reluctance and it continues to talk about an inclusive Quad which should allow a constructive dialogue dedicated to concrete regional security problems: the fight against climate change, the establishment of aid coordination structures for the fight against the pandemic.
And this regardless of the suspicion of a mini Asian NATO - the term has been formulated - and of a set of countries which would only have in mind to bypass or form a counterweight, with the addition of their maritime capacity, to possibly represent a form of implicit alliance vis-à-vis Chinese maritime expansion.
I think the Biden administration wants to break a little this `` confrontational '' and deliberately anti-Chinese side that the Trump administration wanted to give to the Quad and which, moreover, has not allowed the latter to evolve everything by arousing resistance from India.
When Secretary of State Blinken talks about inviting Europe, Asean and expanding the quadrilateral framework, he is actually trying to widen the circle of participants to give the impression of a more legitimate forum and opened.
It also sends a message of goodwill towards China.
And in any case try to show that the Quad is not an alliance which is built against someone in particular.
Even if we feel that the rise of China, its maritime expansion and the aggressiveness shown by the Chinese Navy and Coast Guard in the South China Sea, is an element of concern for the Quad, but also for Europe which has expressed on several occasions in recent months its concerns about the non-respect of the Law of the Sea of China and the aggressiveness of the Chinese navy.
I think it is important to develop a collective response and to think together about a whole set of problems, economic, commercial and not only security and political.
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