Policy Alert #237 | September 29, 2021
On September 24, 2021, U.S. President Joe Biden hosted Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga of Japan, and Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia at the White House for the first-ever in-person Leaders’ Summit of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad. In a joint statement, without naming China, the four leaders renewed their commitment to a free, open, and rules-based Indo-Pacific that is “undaunted by coercion.” The leaders expressed their resolve to “champion adherence to international law, particularly as reflected in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), to meet challenges…in the East and South China Seas.” It is hard to miss the veiled references to China’s rising influence peppered throughout the joint statement from Quad leaders.
September has seen a number of major summits, including BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), capped off by the Quad, as well as the UN General Assembly. Moreover, the Quad meeting came just over a week after the announcement of AUKUS, a new three-way security pact among the U.S., U.K., and Australia centered on a deal to share highly sensitive nuclear submarine technology with Canberra. In Beijing, the angry reaction was swift and predictable; however, the agreement also created turbulence in U.S.-France relations, even as France is the only European country with territories and a military presence in the Indo-Pacific.
The Quad leaders have put forth ambitious initiatives that advance practical cooperation on 21st-century challenges: ending the COVID-19 pandemic, including by increasing production and access to safe and effective vaccines; promoting high-standards infrastructure; combatting the climate crisis; partnering on emerging technologies, space, and cybersecurity; and cultivating next-generation talent in the four countries. As Biden declared in his Quad remarks, “we are four major democracies with a long history of cooperation… we know how to get things done, and we are up to the challenge.” Although the Quad, unlike AUKUS, is not a military pact, establishing a unified front amid shared concerns about China is clearly topmost.
In this Policy Alert, we examine the Rising Powers’ response to the Quad Summit amid the announcement of AUKUS the previous week.
India
For India, the Quad comes on the heels of the SCO summit in Tajikistan on September 17, two very different summits with contrasting geopolitical agendas. Turning his attention to the Quad, Indian Prime Minister Modi announced at the meeting in Washington, “It gives me great pleasure to discuss with my friends wide-ranging topics from supply chains to global security, from climate action to COVID response, to cooperation in the field of technology.”
On September 24, Modi and U.S. President Biden also met for their first bilateral meeting. In his remarks, Modi voiced to Biden, “I find that under your leadership, the seeds have been sown for Indo-US relations to expand.” In a U.S.-India joint statement following the meeting, the two leaders committed to “renewing their close relationship and charting a new course to advance the partnership between the world’s largest democracies.” On Twitter, the Modi called Biden’s leadership on critical global issues “commendable” as they “discussed how India and USA will further scale-up cooperation… and overcome key challenges like COVID-19 and climate change.”
- In an op-ed for the centrist Hindustan Times, Pramit Pal Chaudhuri, foreign editor, sees the Quad as having reached the status of a serious counterweight to China: “Quad…brings together most of the biggest (ex-China) powers of Asia… and seeks to show that whatever autocracies can do, multiparty governments can do better.”
- In an op-ed for the left leaning The Hindu, Abhijit Singh, a senior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation and retired naval officer, was more skeptical about how strong the Indo-Pacific partnerships under U.S. leadership would be given the sudden announcement of AUKUS: “AUKUS has taken the focus away from the Quad…the agreement suggests preferential treatment on the part of Washington for a close Anglo-alliance partner.”
- In an op-ed for the liberal Deccan Herald, Mohamed Zeeshan, foreign affairs columnist and host of DH‘s ‘The Z Factor,’ exhorts India to have a clearer policy as it navigates its role within rivals SCO and Quad: “…if you put your feet in two different boats – each trying to move in the opposite direction at the same time – you’re likely to get thrown overboard by both boats at some point.”
China
On September 24, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian denounced the Quad, proclaiming, “A closed, exclusive clique targeting other countries runs counter to the trend of the times and the aspirations of regional countries. It will find no support and is doomed to fail.” On September 27, after the conclusion of the Quad summit, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying expressed opposition to the so-called “China threat” by emphasizing three points: “First…China is a builder of world peace… and a provider of public goods…Second…most countries recognize…the international system…rather than the so-called “order” unilaterally defined by… US hegemony…Third…relevant countries should abandon the outdated Cold War zero-sum mentality and…promote…peace and stability.”
When asked to comment on AUKUS, Lijian called the new military pact “ill-conceived,” alleging that it will “gravely undermine regional peace” and “aggravate arms race.” Additionally, Chunying protested what China called the “double standards on the non-proliferation issue adopted by the U.S., U.K. and Australia,” professing concerns that AUKUS will undercut the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty and ASEAN countries’ efforts to build a Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone (NWFZ) in Southeast Asia.
- In an op-ed for the nationalist state-run tabloid Global Times, reporter Zhang Hui denies that the Quad is capable of inflicting substantial harm to China: “The Quad…was at the stage of forging verbal consensus rather than signing substantial deals…US typical practice of abandoning its allies…in front of its interests will make Quad another NATO which is existing only in name.”
- In an op-ed for South China Morning Post, a newspaper based in Hong Kong, Robert Delaney, North America Bureau Chief, suggests that by not moderating its assertive military posture in the Indo-Pacific, Beijing may be driving greater regional interest in the Quad: “Beijing’s reactions may be undermining its own interests by pushing the Quad into closer military coordination with other U.S. allies.”
- In an op-ed for the state-directed China Daily, Hamzah Rifaat Hussain, former visiting fellow at the Stimson Center in Washington and former assistant researcher at the Islamabad Policy Research Institute, rejects the idea of AUKUS gaining universal acceptance in the Indo-Pacific: “Concerns regarding brazen proliferation and a probable deterioration in the deterrence equation in the region are well-founded, logical and principled.”
Japan
In his public remarks at the Quad, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga offered, “The Quad is an extremely significant initiative by four countries who share fundamental values, cooperating for the cause of realizing a free and open international order based on the rule of law in the Indo-Pacific.” In an overview presented by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, Prime Minister Suga “expressed serious concern for unilateral attempts to change the status quo by force and coercion” in the context of the East and South China Seas.
On September 22, during a Japan-U.S. Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken agreed to continue to strengthen the Japan-U.S. alliance. In a press conference, when asked whether Japan supports AUKUS, Motegi conveyed that “Japan welcomes the launch of AUKUS in the sense of strengthening engagement in the Indo-Pacific region.”
- In an op-ed for the business-focused Nikkei Asia, James Crabtree, executive director of IISS-Asia in Singapore, reveals how skepticism on AUKUS underlines the challenges the U.S. and its partners face as they simultaneously try to compete with Beijing and keep their own broad, often divided coalition together: “The job of developing new Asian security measures clearly cannot be outsourced to the old Anglosphere alone. The U.S. and its partners would be wise to continue to ensure buy-in elsewhere around Asia, including among the more nervous nations of Southeast.”
- An editorial from the conservative Yomiuri Shimbun proposes that the Quad must maintain dialogue with Beijing and make clear that this is a non-military framework: “We welcome the White House…seeking closer engagement with Asia…However, should the shift be seen as greater efforts to contain China and if China reacts in retaliation, the conflict will only escalate.”
- An editorial from the left-leaning The Mainichi considers the Quad’s normalization of summits amid China’s rise: “The move may suggest that the Quad, seen as a loose coalition of the four countries, is becoming more of a formalized group under the banner of advancing a “free and open” Indo-Pacific.”
