In the first week of October, the Quad – a strategic forum that includes Australia, India, Japan, and the U.S. – held its second-ever foreign ministers meeting in Japan. Despite the anticipation of the meeting’s potential progress in transforming the Quad into an “Asian NATO,” the ministerial meeting in Tokyo did not lead to any joint statement nor significant deepening of security cooperation, while the U.S. stood out as the only participant who made specific remarks targeting China at the meeting.

Due to President Trump’s COVID diagnosis, Mike Pompeo had to cut visits to Mongolia and South Korea from his Asia trip, but the U.S. Secretary of State took the opportunity in Tokyo to rally support from Washington’s closest allies in the Indo-Pacific for a deeper collaboration against China’s regional influence and to accuse China of covering up and worsening the pandemic. Secretary Pompeo stated that it is “more critical now than ever that we collaborate to protect our people and partners from the Chinese Communist Party’s exploitation, corruption and coercion,” pointing to recent Chinese activities in the East and South China Seas, the Mekong region, the Himalayas, and the Taiwan Strait.

In contrast, Australia, Japan, and India made no specific mention of China or the Communist Party of China by name. Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne emphasized that the Quad “has a positive agenda” and that the region should be “governed by rules, not power.” Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said that the goal of the Quad should be “advancing the security and the economic interests of all countries having legitimate and vital interests in the region.” Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi expressed interest in expanding multilateral cooperation with European countries, stating that it is “important to cooperate with as many nations as possible that share these basic values and common rules.”

In this RPI Policy Alert, we survey the Rising Powers on how they evaluate the Quad’s future role in the Indo-Pacific amid the rising level of geopolitical competition in the region.

Read the full Policy Alert here.