Why the US-led Quad alliance won’t realise its ‘Asian Nato’ ambition against China

Beyond the informal grouping’s four members of US, Japan, India and Australia, there are few other truly free and democratic countries in Asia
Many in the region are also reluctant to jeopardise ties with China, especially given its vaccine diplomacy in time of a global pandemic

Joshua Park

Published: 1:00am, 30 Oct 2020

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Just as Nato became a unified bastion of democracy against the Soviet Union, the Quad is hoping to become its era-appropriate equivalent: a bulwark against the rise of China. Unfortunately for Washington and its allies, that is unlikely to happen.

The Quad, or Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, is an informal security alliance between the United States, Japan, India and Australia. Drawing together democratic powers along the Asia-Pacific rim, the alliance was initiated by former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe in 2007. Despite a decade-long hiatus, the Quad resurrected itself in 2017, reasserting its role as the “Asian Arc of Democracy”. The parallels to the Nato transatlantic security alliance draw themselves.

October 6, 2020, marked the first high-level Quad meeting in over a year. Despite the pandemic, the four foreign ministers gathered in Tokyo. In a Covid-19 world that mandates social distancing, the gathering itself was a display of the meeting’s significance.

It was in the shadow of the proverbial elephant in the room that lay just over a thousand miles away, that the four foreign ministers met to discuss how to counter the rise of China.

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In a press conference on the day of the Quad meeting, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said: “Once we’ve institutionalised what we’re doing – the four of us together – we can begin to build out a true security framework.” Ever since the Quad’s revival in 2017 and the increasingly Beijing-hostile Trump administration, international-relations watchers have speculated about the Quad’s formalisation and expansion.

The implications of an “Asian Nato” are profound; a bloc of democracies with a singular goal forming across Asia and surrounding the ascendant China. With the South China Sea disputes and Taiwan poised to be some of the likeliest triggers of direct conflict with China, security in the region has emerged as a global priority.

But we are unlikely to reach that point. As alluring as an “Asian Nato” might sound, Washington’s dreams of a united front against Beijing will never materialise. Three primary reasons stand out.

First and most immediately, too few countries in the Asia-Pacific are true democracies. According to Freedom House’s 2020 Global Freedom Status, only Mongolia, South Korea, New Zealand, East Timor, and some Pacific Island nations qualify as “free”, beyond the Quad members.

An “Asian Arc of Democracy” that demands free and open democracy disqualifies most countries in the region. A grand Asia-Pacific wall against China simply will not be effective if there are only a handful of participating countries scattered loosely across the vast region. Either that, or the Quad must forsake its principles of freedom and democracy in a tunnel-vision effort to counter China.

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Second, new Quad members will almost certainly be forced to sacrifice their relationship with China. As the international climate grows ever more polarised with the US and China each pursuing nations to join its “side”, a security alliance with the US will almost inevitably come at the cost of an economic partnership with China.

For instance, Australia – a long-time friend of the US, a Quad nation, and a key economic partner of China – saw its relations with the world’s second largest economy fall to record lows, with sanctions on Australian beef, barley and coal in the span of the past few months.

US-China sparring puts Southeast Asian neutrality to the test

Finally, given the unique situation of the coronavirus pandemic, many countries in Asia, and indeed the world, rely on China for vaccine help. The Philippines has struck a deal with China for priority access to its vaccines. Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos have also been promised priority vaccines by China’s foreign minister.

Bangladesh and Indonesia are poised to receive free doses. Beyond these countries, several more across Asia, Latin America and Africa have signed deals with China for some form of vaccine cooperation. China, a leading country in the vaccine race, has begun its brand of “vaccine diplomacy” to keep nations on its side.

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Despite the obstacles, Quad leaders continue to strive to achieve a “free and open Indo-Pacific”. Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne flew directly to Singapore after the October 6 Tokyo meeting, reportedly to further the Quad agenda.

And India has included Australia in its annual Malabar naval drills with the US and Japan this year. Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has increased the country’s defence cooperation with Vietnam and is in talks with Indonesia and Thailand too.

However, the Quad’s hopes for an Indo-Pacific democracy bloc to counter China, much as Nato did with the Soviet Union, is ultimately unlikely to be realised. Non-democratic Asia simply is too antithetical to the Quad’s aims, even with a common enemy.

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Besides, China’s sphere of influence is nigh impossible to extract oneself from, even without the pressure of pandemic cooperation.

This is not to say that the Quad serves no function or that it cannot happily thrive in its existing form. But if what the Quad truly wants is a cohesive, unified Asian bloc against China, then the four democratic nations must look elsewhere.

Joshua Park is studying East Asian History at Harvard University and is an intern at the Asia Society Policy Institute. These views are solely the author’s and do not represent the ASPI’s