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The leaders of the United States, Japan, India and Australia will hold their first face-to-face Indo-Pacific summit on Friday Quartet Security Dialogue, Or the so-called “Quad” grouping.
The informal arrangements for the first cooperation in response to the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami have been consolidated since 2017. It was promoted by the U.S. government’s continuous policy toward China, and to a large extent helped by individual tensions between Tokyo, Canberra, New Delhi and Beijing.
In recent years, the four-party meeting has gradually played a role in the chain of command, and the first group meeting was held- Although it is virtual -March summit.
At the first face-to-face leadership meeting, the survival of the current iteration of the two US administrations and the changes in the Japanese and Australian governments “showed [the Quad’s] Sameer Lalwani, senior researcher for Asian strategy at Stimson Center, told Al Jazeera.
“This will be a real institution…I think it will be a group that will occupy the minds of Washington’s defense and diplomatic community planning for the next few years,” he said.
Larvani added that although the four countries’ concerns about an increasingly confident China in the Indo-Pacific region have created a common ground, the organization’s emerging goals include “the Swiss Army Knife for the delivery of public goods to the Indo-Pacific.”
Following summit In March of this year, the four parties issued a joint statement advocating “a free, open, and rule-based order”, promising to align the “medical, scientific, financing, manufacturing, and delivery” capabilities of the COVID-19 vaccine with climate change. Combine.
It also announced the establishment of a “critical and emerging” technology working group, which is expected to solve 5G infrastructure investment and semiconductor supply chain issues in the future.
Although China is vaguely visible, the March joint statement did not specifically mention this superpower.
Consolidate group
Observers said the Quad Group is still looking for a foothold. The different—and sometimes opaque—targets reflect the unstable balance behavior of Australia, India, and Japan. They see the benefits of cooperating in the chaos of regional and global issues, but worry about threatening their intricacies with Beijing. And unique relationship.
Nevertheless, although these three countries are cautious about the ideological emphasis on China during the administration of former President Donald Trump, all three countries tend to target China more directly to varying degrees, although they continue to emphasize that they do not Consider this arrangement only as a bastion against Chinese military power.
Nonetheless, in August, the navies of Australia, India, Japan, and the United States conducted large-scale naval exercises in the Pacific for the second consecutive year, this time off the coast of Guam. These countries insist that the Malabar exercise (previously only included the United States and India) is not under the auspices of the Quartet.
India, the U.S., Japan and Australia participate in the 2020 Malabar naval exercise [File: The Associated Press]At the same time, Japan and Australia are more willing to take a clear stance against China in the region, even if Beijing represents Tokyo’s second largest trading partner and Canberra’s largest trading partner.
following April summitJapanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and U.S. President Biden issued a joint statement criticizing China’s “illegal maritime claims and activities in the South China Sea” and the actions taken by Japan’s Senkaku Islands (known as Diaoyu Islands in China). The importance of the South China Sea”. Peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait”.
The uniqueness of the statement is not only the reference to China’s name — Tokyo’s traditionally not used to doing this, as part of its obscure policy towards neighboring superpowers — it also mentions China’s military power. Action against TaiwanThe last time the two countries named the island in a joint statement was in 1969.
In an interview with Bloomberg on Wednesday, Suga Yoshihide warned that China’s military rise “may pose a threat to our country’s peace and prosperity” and advocated strengthening defense relations with the United States. He added that it is still important for Japan and China to maintain dialogue.
At the same time, just a few days before the Quartet summit on Friday, the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom announced a new Indo-Pacific security agreement. Aucos, Including a deal to provide nuclear-powered submarines to Canberra. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki ruled out the possibility of Japan or India being invited to join the security partnership on Wednesday.
As expected, Beijing Swiftly condemned AUKUS called it “extremely irresponsible” and accused the countries of the region of “intensifying the arms race.”
China’s official tabloid Global Times, which had previously mocked the “Asian NATO” group of four nations, published an editorial on Tuesday, criticizing Biden’s actions as leading to a “new cold war”.
It added that the United States has “doing its best to inject a military cooperation narrative against China into the Group of Four.”
India’s role
Ethan Paul, a senior researcher at the Quincy Institute for Responsible State Affairs, said that at the same time, India’s decision to continue cooperating with the four countries is particularly important. He pointed out that compared with other countries, New Delhi has fewer concerns about the South China Sea and more attention. Its disputed border with China and maritime security in the Indian Ocean.
He added that India is the only four-party country that shares a land border with China and has a particularly “delicate balance game.”The two countries continue to fight A long-simmering border disputeIn June 2020, the conflict in the Galvan Valley became deadly.
“In my opinion, seeing how India continues to play this game while maintaining its relationship with the four countries and its commitment to the vision of Asia will have a huge impact on the four countries themselves and the future of the region,” Paul told Al Al Jazeera.
He added that what is particularly convincing is how India responds to the tensions surrounding Taiwan, which has become a regional focus of increasing concern for the United States, Japan and Australia.
“This will be a serious question for India to ask itself: What does it want the future of the Taiwan Strait to look like, and how did it get there?” he said. “However, it answers this question and will have a significant impact on Quad.”
As far as India is concerned, on the eve of the summit, India has been trying to downplay the security component of the Group of Four. The Minister of Foreign Affairs Harsh Vardhan Shringla has drawn a clear distinction between the Group of Four and alliances such as AUKUS. limit.
“Let me make it clear that Quad and AUKUS are not groups of similar nature,” Shringla said, calling Quad an “evolving process.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi (Narendra Modi) is scheduled to have a one-on-one meeting with Biden before the four leaders meet on Friday.
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