China right to be concerned about Quad alliance’s bright future, analysts say

Name: Explained: the history of China’s territorial disputes
Uploaded: 2020-10-24T04:00:19.000Z
Duration: 6 min 24 s
Description: Explained: the history of China’s territorial disputes

After unpromising beginning, US, Japan, India and Australia grouping is finding renewed common ground against Beijing

Revival coincides with increasingly tense relations on a growing range of issues between the four countries and China

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Australia has accepted India’s invitation to join next month’s Malabar naval exercise, along with the US and Japan. Photo: AFP

Laura Zhou

Published: 12:00pm, 24 Oct 2020Updated: 10:46am, 26 Oct 2020

After initially dismissing the strategic partnership between the US, Japan, India and Australia – known as the Quad – analysts say Beijing is growing more cautious about the informal, implicitly anti-China alliance.

During a nationally televised press conference in March 2018, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi referred to the grouping as nothing more than “sea foam on the Pacific and Indian oceans” that would eventually dissipate. At the time, all the signs suggested he was correct.

China and India had just agreed to back away from their months-long military stand-off in the Himalayas, while a trade war with the US seemed to be merely rhetorical. And diplomats in Beijing and Tokyo were busily preparing for an ice-breaking trip to Japan by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang for the 40th anniversary celebrations of the two countries’ peace and friendship treaty, after a decade of confrontation.

Two years later, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue – to give the Quad its full title – is steadily advancing cooperation between the four countries, with renewed interest in the grouping from India and Australia, which are each experiencing friction in their relations with China.

In a move likely to dismay Beijing, Australia has accepted India’s invitation to join next month’s Malabar naval exercise, along with the US and Japan, 13 years after it last took part. It will be the first time the four countries have held a joint military exercise of this size.

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Explained: the history of China’s territorial disputes

Australia’s participation was announced just days after the Quad’s foreign ministers held an inaugural four-way summit in Tokyo where they also discussed supply chain resilience in the Indo-Pacific region as part of a joint effort to counter China’s trade dominance.