China’s territorial assertiveness has rapidly revived the long-dormant Quadrilateral (Quad) alliance among major maritime powers India, Japan, Australia and the United States.
A renewed sense of urgency among China’s strategic rivals is being driven partly by growing frustration with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) grouping’s inability to tame Beijing’s geopolitical ambitions through dialogue and engagement.
With Asean’s centrality in question, classic balance of power calculations are beginning to define the future of the Asia-Pacific’s strategic order – or disorder, as it may become. The major risk with the Quad’s formation is that, viewed by Beijing as a provocation, it fuels rather than constrains China’s maritime assertiveness, particularly in the South China Sea.
In recent years, China’s Quad rivals have stepped up joint naval drills among themselves, while hosting various high-profile exercises aimed at defending freedom of navigation and overflight in international waters.
India is set to host an eight-day joint naval exercise around the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a highly strategic group of islands at the crossroads of the South China Sea and Indian Ocean. As many as 16 nations, including Australia, Indonesia, Vietnam and Singapore, are set to participate in the exercises.
Interestingly, the exercises were announced shortly after an agreement was reached between China and Asean to hold their first ever joint naval exercises later this year.
Last year, Washington, Tokyo and New Delhi participated in the Malabar naval exercises staged in India, with a heavy focus on anti-submarine warfare (ASW), a crucial area of vulnerability for China’s rising naval power.
It was the second time that the maritime powers conducted the week-long drills, which are expected to be regularized in coming years.
Quad nations are also contemplating further coordinated countermeasures in the South China Sea in order to keep Beijing’s expanding footprint in the area in check. The anticipated appointment of US Pacific Command chief Admiral Harry Harris, a known China hawk, as new US ambassador to Australia is expected to further institutionalize such efforts.
Harris, a Japanese-American by birth, has been a key architect of America’s broader “Indo-Pacific” strategy, which is anchored through the growing participation of democratic powers in Asia to preserve the US-led liberal order in the region.
Under Harris’ watch, Washington has been requesting Australia and other major allies to participate in its Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPs), which directly challenge China’s perceived as excessive claims in the South China Sea.
As an incoming top diplomat, he is expected to lobby hard for more concrete naval countermeasures among the Quad nations, including Australia.
Harris’ strategic views build on the earlier “democratic security diamond” vision of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has sought to counterbalance China’s maritime power through strengthened coordination among like-minded Asian powers.
In recent months, US President Donald Trump administration officials have consistently used the term “Indo-Pacific”, rather than “Asia-Pacific”, during their visits to Asia, signaling high-level acceptance of the Abe-Harris geopolitical paradigm.
To be sure, China is not the only force that is driving the Quad alliance. To the chagrin of Washington and its major allies, Asean has increasingly toed Beijing’s line on major flashpoints such as the South China Sea disputes.
In the past, there was cautious optimism among major regional powers that Southeast Asian nations would collectively stand up to as well as socialize their powerful northern neighbor along more pacifist, multilateralist principles.
Instead, China has managed to divide and conquer Asean through its reliable allies Cambodia and Laos, allowing it to turn the regional body that was first formed to counter communism into a de facto shield against its rivals.
This new trend was particularly acute under last year’s chairmanship of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who effectively told the US and other major powers to stay out of the South China Sea disputes in favor of bilateral deals between China and its smaller Southeast Asian partners.
Major Asean members, including Singapore and Indonesia, have echoed Beijing’s claim that the situation in the area is generally “stable”, even though China’s massive reclamation activities and full-fledged militarization of artificially-created islands in the South China Sea have gone unabated.
Uncertain about America’s commitment to the region, and wooed by China’s massive economic carrots, Asean appears to have opted for graceful accommodation with its northern neighbor despite its rising naval prowess in nearby waters.
There is no guarantee, however, that the Quad nations themselves will ever form a strong enough counter-alliance to deter China’s ambitions.
Since the early 2000s, India, Japan, Australia and the US have consistently talked about forming a robust coalition, yet internal bickering, tempestuous domestic politics, fears of undermining lucrative economic ties with China, as well as a lack of cohesive vision and leadership have diminished the prospective alliance.
India, for its part, remains deeply adamant about not following in America’s footsteps, while Australia is particularly intent on preserving its strong economic relationship with China. Japan and the US, meanwhile, have been constrained by the vicissitudes of their respective domestic politics.
Nonetheless, China has openly characterized the Quad as a provocative encirclement strategy.
This has given Beijing a perfect pretext to fortify its military footprint in adjacent waters through a growing naval presence, large-scale reclamation activities and deployment of advanced weapons systems to the South China Sea.
If present trends hold, the emerging Quad-China rivalry could quickly undermine Asean’s past role in shaping the region’s security architecture and keeping relative peace. Southeast Asian countries will either rise to the occasion, or risk becoming a mere bystander to the region’s escalating great power contest.
"India better first solve problems with their immediate neighbours before venturing far away. India needs to first befriend Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Kashmir"
If India could accomplish that with her neighbors who share so much of her culture, not only the region will change but so will the world.
and
I like your story of the philosopher with his eyes on the sky.
Art Laramee
American Sanctions cutting a country from using the dolllar and leaving innocent men women and children to starve is a cruel Jewish act. As you well know Jews run America and Jews have no morals.
Art Laramee
2017 Military Budgets $Billions (% of GDP)
USA 602.8 (3.3%)
PRC 150.5 (
quad goose eggs.. if they hatch at all.
Biswajyoti Kafley
Explain.
"A ‘ sense of urgency’ among China’s strategic rivals…"
A fine choice of words. Some might say "panic". Think tanks in the west are grinding out 50+ page documents to guide the ruling class response to China’s "influence". It looks like a political crackdown in the West targeting anyone with any kind of contact with China. Here:
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/magic-weapons-chinas-political-influence-activities-under-xi-jinping
And here:
https://www.merics.org/en/publications/authoritarian-advance
So yes, ruling circles in the West are fearful, not of China’s hard power, but of its formidable soft power, where the West has become deficient. Meanwhile, the US is STILL determined to put together a defacto anti-China alliance, and it just will not work. The quote below tells everything.
"To the chagrin of Washington and its major allies, Asean has increasingly toed Beijing’s line on major flashpoints such as the South China Sea disputes."
Michael Bagala Nit picking facts to hide the greater truth of colonial mismanagement is nice trick. Today’s India is far better than the India of 1947.
Thomas Daniel Kuhn
I disagree. The problem with New Delhi is corruption not lack of talent or money. Partnering with China will not do away with India’s corruption.
Example in 1930 India had 30 thousand cars. America had 27 thousand cars.
By 1940 India was manufacturing cars and car parts. By 1947 when India became independent she had advanced commercial cities such as Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta. Bombay Stock exchange is the oldest in Asia, Other factors include 2nd or 3rd largest English speaking population in 1947, 3rd largest railway system etc.
India was way ahead of South East Asia in 1947.
By 2017 India has the world’s largest number of malnourished, poor, disenfranchised, GDP that should be many times larger, Infrasructure that has fallen back.
India regressed. Even in 1991 when India opened her economy the disparity of wealth grew. Over 90% of her 1.3 Billion are dirt poor and lack the basic needs any modern nation takes for granted. India was at a beter state in 1947 with 350 million than in 2017 with 1.3 billion.
Agree on the sanctions. They are a substitute for bold action which would almost immediately result in war.
This is why China has built such a robust military and presence in the South China Seas? You, like all the anti-American bigots can see only evil in American actions and motives and no evil creating American reactions. Screw you…
India’s "increasing" friendship with China ?? Do you have a clue what you are talking about ??
The only way all of that is going to happen is if India forms a partnership with China. The US, Australia and Japan are certainly not going to help with any of that. The only thing they are going to help India with is to get into a war with China.
What’s missing here are Australia’s lack of commitment to US Indo-Pacific strategy and India’s increasing friendship with China, which leaves us with the two imperialists,US and Japan.
India, US, Japan ought to learn from ancient Greece and Thales who was known to think only of stars. He would walk at night with his head firmly affixed at the sky. One day, doing so he fell into a well without a parapeet.
The peasent girl who came to fetch water and heard his cries pulled him out, and wisely told the "philosopher" that it would have been better had he thought of the problems of earth, rather than the heavens.
India better first solve problems with their immediate neighbours before venturing far away. India needs to first befriend Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Kashmir.
Japan needs to apologize for its past from Korea, China, and rest of Asia. Australia must come to terms with Indonesia.
America needs to stop berating Mexico and Canada. Only then they should form the Quad, whose present purpose is trouble-making rather than peace.
Another issue is the Dollar, Japan and India. Both Japan and India are at various levels in moving away from the dollar. India recently bought Iranian oil using the rupee and not the dollar. Japan has done likewise in bilateral trade with China.
America now has a nasty habit of using the dollar to sanction nations, Businesses and people. An act like that against India, Japan or Australia quickly breaks up the Quad.
When will the Corporate Capitalist West learn that there is a greater power above them, the Divine Hand, that watches all.
This Invisible Hand favours all who do good. Truth will triumph above all.
The best defence is good deeds, and striving for peace. Collaboration is better than confrontation. Trade is better than war.
Here is a 5-minute poetic piece by Xi about his BRI.
The biggest effort India can contribute to the Quad is
-provide toilets for 700 million Indians.
-provide uninterrupted electricity for her 1.3 bilion population
-provide clean drinking water for her 1.3 billion pop.
-Help save 5000 Indian children dying ‘each day’ due to starvation.
-provide housing, medical care, education, (including 100% literacy) for her pop.
-Clean up the epic pollution of her rivers, land and air.
After that.
-Get involved in buidling the infrastructure of South Asia whose combined pop is 1.7 billion. That means working with Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and Afghanistan. That means "NOT" using RAW or India’s military to sabotage and kill.
The world has changed especially when Trump becomes the POTUS. Everything is centred on America First. It is not prepared to pay the price of being the main antagonist in this competition. It is spreading the risk, hoping to make it looks like a coalition of the free world. LOL. For Australia it is desperate to keep and expand the economic goodies from China. India suddenly find out that it is taking the hard knocks for nothing. Japan is having second thought on trying to challenge China in SEA after discovering that ASEAN is in China’s bag. China has not bother much about the formation of Quads, as it calculates US has lost much credibility and goodwill in Asia. So yes every country is only for its own national interest.
Ask any reputable psychoanalyst and they will tell you that this is the behaviour of someone with a phobia or inferiority complex. It is like striking down a fast rising rival in the promotion stake at work or office – the tall poppy syndrome.
Yes, they might also be afraid of karmic retribution because the Chinese have long memories.
I am only surmising of course.
If in economic theory a monopoly is a bane or evil, why then in geopolitics should U.S. self anointed Wrod Sheriff hegemony not be equally a bane or evil?
Let me see, what can China find grounds to seek vengeance and pursue a vendetta that could possibly put dread and fear in the craven Quad.
Japan for its WW2 invasion and particularly the Rape of Nanking and the the gas nerve experiments in Manchuria.
The Yanks for the Chinese Exclusion Act after the Chinese had helped with building the railroads as if Chinese were not human and the part they played in the humiliation of China during the Opium Wars and more recently the entanglements in Korea and Vietnam.
Australia for its White Australia Policy and sinophobi and being an obsequious fawning servile underling of the Yanks.
India for acting like their past Colonial Master the British in assuming the MacMahon Line unilaterally drawn by the British without negotiation with China was the common border and subjecting the Chinese descendants of the tea planters brought in by the British to help set up tea plantations in Assam to gross atrocities.
I am only guessing or speculating of course as I cannot hypnotise the Quad as patients to see why they have this morbid siege complex?
Nonsense argument. You can’t replace Asean. You can try to co-op Asean nations or arm-twist them to go against China. That’s their best chance, though there is not enough incentive in term of trade or investment. India is a bit player at best vis-a-vis Sourth East Asia. Otherwise, the Quad are geographically outsiders at best. It’s the same with their so-called Quad Silk Road. None of them, save for a recalcitrant India, are geographically positioned to benefit from Eurasian interconnectivity.