(Tokyo) The leaders of the United States, Japan, Australia and India met in Tokyo on Tuesday to try to find common ground in the face of China’s growing economic and military influence in the world. Asia-Pacific region.
Posted yesterday at 11:43 p.m.
The summit of this informal grouping called “Quad” comes as Beijing strengthens its military capabilities and multiplies exercises and maneuvers near disputed territories, including Taiwan.
“China is flirting with danger,” warned US President Joe Biden on Monday, repeating that the United States was ready to use its military means if it invaded the autonomous island.
Even if the Biden administration immediately tried to tone down these remarks, Beijing reacted strongly by invoking its “sovereignty” and judging that the United States was playing “with fire”.
This Quad summit is about “democracies against autocracies, and we have to make sure we live up to it,” Biden said Tuesday morning.
Japan has also recently toughened its language on its neighbour, warning China against any “unilateral change of the status quo by force”.
Countries in the region are also concerned about Beijing’s efforts to forge alliances with Pacific nations. After a security agreement concluded last month with the Solomon Islands, China could, according to some media, want to extend it to others: Vanuatu, Samoa, Tonga and Kiribati.
Disagreements with India
According to a US official, the four countries are expected to agree Tuesday on a common system to track regional maritime traffic, including “in territorial waters and exclusive economic zones”.
The data collected will be shared with “a wide range of partners” to help monitor activities like illegal fishing, he told reporters.
In the space of a few hours, Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the new Australian leader Anthony Albanese will try to transform their informal alliance into a united bloc capable of facing China.
This unit is however complicated by disagreements with India, the only member of the Quad not to have condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine, even increasing its imports of Russian oil despite criticism.
On the contrary, Mr. Biden and his allies draw a parallel between the war led by Moscow and the territorial ambitions of Beijing, arguing that the sanctions against Russia also serve as a deterrent to other countries tempted by military actions.
Mr. Biden, who will also have bilateral talks with MM. Modi and Albanese, “is well aware that India has its own history, its own way of seeing things”, noted the American official.
The question is how those differences are managed, he added, saying that Mr Biden “is of the opinion that we need to have frank and direct discussions”.
“Not here to joke”
“The Quad gives the impression of being focused on ways to thwart China. But India will probably adopt a neutral position,” Kazuhiro Maeshima, professor of American politics at Sophia University in Tokyo, told AFP.
The Quad’s previous joint statements had been limited to advocating a “free and open Indo-Pacific” and warning against “unilateral” actions, without citing Beijing.
The American president underlined at the opening of the summit the growing importance of the Quad, considering that “in a short time, we have shown that it is not just a passing fad. We are not here to joke, ”he said.
The Quad is also a diplomatic baptism of fire for Australia’s new Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, 59, who arrived in Tokyo just hours after his inauguration.
Mr. Biden’s Asian tour, which had started with a three-day stay in South Korea, is also dominated by the possibility that the unpredictable North Korea will fire a new missile or carry out a nuclear test.
This fear has not materialized so far, but Washington has said it is “prepared” for this eventuality, as talks have stalled since the failure of a summit in 2019 between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and then-US President Donald Trump.
What is the Quad Alliance?
The “Quad” group, which brings together the United States, India, Australia and Japan, was officially created in 2007 with the main objective of countering the growing influence of China in the Asia-Pacific region.
Born after the 2004 tsunami
The four countries meet for the first time after the earthquake, followed by a tsunami, of January 26, 2004 in Indonesia, before forming, three years later, the Quadrilateral Dialogue on Security. The first major act of the Quad is a joint naval exercise as part of the Malabar maneuvers between the United States and India. But the following year, then-Prime Minister Kevin Rudd stepped back from the alliance, not wanting to appear in a group seen as openly challenging China, which had become an important economic partner of the United States. ‘Australia.
Australia’s return
A decade later, violent clashes on the China-India border are pushing for the dormant alliance to be reconstituted, with a stronger commitment from Canberra. The four countries are taking part in the 2020 Malabar exercises, making the group appear more and more like a military alliance.
Biden’s brand
After a Trump administration that was content to support the Quad, his successor Joe Biden is going further, by organizing the first virtual summit of the group’s leaders in March 2021, before an in-person meeting last September in Washington. In September 2021, the four leaders meet in Washington, which helps to cement this informal alliance a little more. This formation reflects Washington’s new strategy of building coalitions of countries and institutions around common needs rather than traditional military alliances.
Courting India
For the United States, Australia and Japan, the Quad is an instrument to woo India, traditionally attached to its non-aligned status in superpower battles. The deadly fighting on its border with China in 2019 may have changed it. India is “the crucial, critical member of the Quad”, explained in November Kurt Campbell, responsible for national security in the Asia-Pacific region at the White House. In its strategic plan for the region, the United States has moved from referring to “Asia-Pacific” to referring to “Indo-Pacific”.
Vaccines and climate change
The Quad is more than a matter of defense, assure the four countries. Members of the Quad want to develop “soft-power” actions which, coming from democratic countries, would contrast with authoritarian China. COVID-19 has given the band a new purpose. It is within the framework of the Quad that the four countries have promised the distribution of 1.3 billion doses of vaccine. Other issues are addressed: so-called clean maritime transport, the fight against global warming and the establishment of a safer computer and internet infrastructure.