Quad foreign ministers take aim at China, vow to step up maritime cooperation in Indo-Pacific

TOKYO – Top diplomats from Australia, India, Japan and the US vowed to strengthen maritime cooperation across the Indo-Pacific on July 29, as they doubled down on their “strong opposition” to intimidating and dangerous unilateral actions in international waters.

Beijing was clearly the elephant in the room at

the eighth Quad foreign ministers’ meeting,

even if China was not explicitly named in the joint statement after the meeting on July 29.

“We are seriously concerned about the situation in the East and South China Seas and reiterate our strong opposition to any unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo by force or coercion,” Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a joint statement after their meeting.

The Quad foreign ministers drew particular attention to “the militarisation of disputed features” and the “dangerous use of coast guard and maritime militia vessels, the increasing use of various kinds of dangerous manoeuvres, and efforts to disrupt other countries’ offshore resource exploitation activities”.

The four foreign ministers pledged to enhance an awareness of international maritime legal norms in the areas that cover the Pacific Islands to Asean and across the Indian Ocean towards the eastern African coast.

The meeting followed

an announcement on July 28

that the US will revamp its military command in Japan with a new “joint force headquarters” that will facilitate deeper interoperability with Japan’s Self-Defence Forces.

Mr Blinken is on an 11-day trip to Asia to shore up relationships with key partners and allies.

Asked about the statement at a regular news briefing on July 29, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said the Quad was “artificially creating tensions, inciting antagonism and confrontation, and curbing the development of other countries”.

He added: “China firmly opposes the countries concerned practising bloc confrontation in the name of ‘opposing coercion’, and defending order on the pretext of upholding the domestic laws and regulations concocted by a handful of countries.”

Counterbalancing China

China has slammed the Quad in the past as an “Asian Nato”, referring to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, a defence alliance comprising 30 European and two North American countries founded in 1949 to contain the threat of the former Soviet Union.

But while the Quad started off with security objectives in 2007, its remit has since broadened to cover issues such as capacity building, cyber security, humanitarian aid and disaster relief.

Professor Heng Yee Kuang, from The University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Public Policy, said Chinese displeasure stems from its “instinctive dislike for encirclement”. 

“The idea is to build a ‘latticework strategy’ involving multiple, sometimes overlapping, alignments, of which Quad is one of the frameworks,” he said.

But he added: “India’s recent delivery of shore-based anti-ship BrahMos missiles to the Philippines is more likely to worry China than the (Quad) statement.”

Chinese navy vessels have been embroiled in dangerous skirmishes with Philippine vessels in the South China Sea, amid competing claims over the key waterway that is also rich in minerals.

Beijing continues to

reject a 2016 Permanent Court of Arbitration

ruling that struck out China’s expansive claims in the South China Sea as having no basis in international law.

“The Quad has found a role to play in counterbalancing China – rather than containing China by force – through a broad coalition of ‘like-minded partners’ who share concerns about Chinese ill behaviour,” Mr Ippeita Nishida, a senior fellow at the Tokyo-based Sasakawa Peace Foundation think-tank, told The Straits Times.

He added that these broad efforts, in the long run, are “expected to yield a strategic environment less favourable for China to continue its current attempts to unilaterally change the status quo by force”.

The Quad foreign ministers ended the Tokyo meeting on July 29 with a range of pledges, including supporting capacity building in cyber security in the Philippines, deploying Open Radio Access Networks in Palau, and closely cooperating in setting standards for artificial intelligence and advanced communications.

As Mr Jaishankar said: “All of us are looking at how to advance Quad, how to resource it better, how to coordinate more closely. And I think we made some important steps today in that direction. This is not a talk shop, but a platform that generates practical outcomes.”

They also agreed to bolster the resilience of subsea cable networks – a key battleground in the US-China tech war – extend “maritime domain awareness” and streamline their disaster response framework in the region.

They further vowed to support media freedom and fight fake news and the spread of disinformation, which “undermines trust and sows discord in the international community”.

Dr Satoru Nagao, a non-resident fellow of US think-tank Hudson Institute, added that China is the main driver for the outreach on telecommunications, climate change, critical minerals and supply chains.

Sensitivities among partners

Still, there are clues in the wording of the Quad statement that point to some underlying complexities in global politics.

“Japan, Australia and the US have to be very considerate to India’s delicate position, even as the ultimate goal for the Quad is to uphold the rule of law,” Ms Asuka Tatebayashi, a senior analyst in Mizuho Bank’s global strategic advisory department, told ST.

While the Quad statement contained language that was clearly aimed at China, analysts said China was not named, given diplomatic sensitivities in India over land border clashes with its neighbour.

In contrast,

the US-Japan statement

on July 28 had directly accused China of seeking to “reshape the international order for its own benefit at the expense of others”.

Even if the four Quad member states had agreed on the “negative impacts of the war in Ukraine” and “North Korea’s destabilising (missile) launches” in their statement, Hudson Institute’s Dr Nagao noted they differ more broadly on key issues, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the Gaza conflict.

India, in particular, maintains a close relationship with Russia, traditionally an important source of oil and arms for New Delhi. India has so far refused to explicitly criticise Russian President Vladimir Putin for the Ukraine war.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was

in Moscow on his first working visit

after winning an unprecedented third term in office in June.

“They (the Quad ministers) wanted to show that they are united, that they are one. But whether they can overcome their differences on various fronts is another thing,” Dr Nagao said.