Quad Meeting: To Hog China By New Local NATO Alliance
China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi on criticized the US-led Quad on Quadrilateral Security Dialogue consisting of the United States, Japan, Australia and India which is the part of Washington’s efforts to build an ‘Indo-Pacific NATO. The recently held security dialogue by the Quad countries in Tokyo to counter the rising influence of China in the Indo-Pacific was a trigger for the top Chinese diplomat’s comments.
The Tokyo dialogue of the Foreign Ministers of the United States, Japan, Australia and India was required to brace security cooperation to challenge China in its growing influence in the Indo-Pacific region. After initially downplaying the alliance as an overly hyped idea, China is suddenly provoked with the increased cooperation between the Quad countries, where all have border or trade-related clashes within it.
Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, who participated in the alliance’s meeting in Tokyo, articulated that it was imperative for the Quad group to put efforts on proceeding security and economic welfares of all the countries bearing legitimate and dynamic interests in the Indo-Pacific region. With a veiled reference to China, he said India commits itself to rules-based world order and respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty. Recently, Australia joined the Malabar naval exercises that involve the United States, Japan and India for the first time, which were held in India.
The Quad has been maintaining a liaison with seriousness, specifically when China started to push its expansionist agendas across the IOR countries more aggressively. The Quad countries consider its dominance as a threat to regional security and, consequently, the ambitions of the alliance have grown beyond trade and economy to include strategic cooperation. When confronted by a Xinhua reporter on his views about Trump’s Indo-Pacific strategy, he believed that the US strategy pursues to trumpet the Cold War mentality and to stir up a confrontation among different groups and blocs, to stoke geopolitical competition. He expressed about the strategy employed by the US President in relation to the Indo-Pacific region that the dominance and hegemonic system of the United States is the core reason of its maintenance.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called out China as a hazard to the region in the Quad meeting, reflecting, “As partners in this Quad, 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.”
According to the experts, both India and Japan are desirous to join the ‘Asian-NATO’ alliance, however, both nations cannot afford to pamper their economic ties with the world’s second-biggest economy, even though they would like to continue their military alliance with the US. Amidst China’s aggressive advances at land and sea, the United States led Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QSD) alliance with India, Japan and Australia that is set to enhance cooperation in the fields of military and trade to counter Beijing’s growing impact in the Indo-Pacific region.
There is a lot of churning in world polity as Biden will be considered weak both externally and internally, in order to boost up the US image war as a must ingredient. Whereas China has challenged US superpower status while offering to King Salman of Saudi Arabia (KSA) to change its oil payments from Petro Dollars to Petro Yuans, which KSA is very likely to spurn, as it only plays to the tunes of the US for the last 70 years.
It is also very likely since KSA love affair with Israel has gone public that KSA would now openly threaten Pakistan to take back its workforce, and maybe influence the Saudi-sponsored 56-nation Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) to accept Kashmir as a part of India. KSA may also force OIC to abandon Gilgit-Baltistan as Pakistan’s fifth province, which is the gateway of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and; US and India want to get killed at every cost. As for Israel, it finds Pakistan as the only Muslim state with nuclear teeth, and through KSA it wants Pakistan’s jaws broken, to the ultimate advantage of India. It’s now turn to China as how it will relate this for the maintenance of new world order.
The views expressed in the article above are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Newspaper. The writer can be reached at rehmanaseef@yahoo.com
