{"id":87170,"date":"2024-05-28T12:09:01","date_gmt":"2024-05-28T02:09:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=87170"},"modified":"2024-05-28T12:09:01","modified_gmt":"2024-05-28T02:09:01","slug":"is-the-quad-becoming-a-potemkin-alliance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/is-the-quad-becoming-a-potemkin-alliance\/","title":{"rendered":"Is the Quad becoming a Potemkin alliance?"},"content":{"rendered":"

When four of the Indo-Pacific\u2019s leading democracies\u2014Australia, India, Japan and the United States\u2014revived\u00a0the long-dormant Quad in 2017, their objective was clear: to create a strategic bulwark against Chinese expansionism and reinforce a stable regional balance of power. But the coalition is now adrift, and the security risks this poses should not be underestimated.<\/p>\n

The Quad\u2019s resurrection reflected a\u00a0paradigm shift<\/a>\u00a0in US foreign policy. After decades of engagement with China, including\u00a0aiding\u00a0its economic rise, US policymakers\u2014Democrats and Republicans alike\u2014realised that America\u2019s biggest trade partner had become its biggest strategic adversary, bent on replacing it as global hegemon. As US President\u00a0Joe Biden\u00a0indicated in his 2022\u00a0National Security Strategy, China is \u2018the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to advance that objective.\u2019<\/p>\n

Biden, like his predecessor, Donald Trump, viewed the Quad as an essential instrument to uphold a free and open Indo-Pacific, a concept\u00a0formulated\u00a0by the late Japanese Prime Minister\u00a0Abe Shinzo. So, Biden\u00a0elevated<\/a>\u00a0Quad discussions from the level of foreign ministers, who had been meeting annually since 2019, to heads of state or government, initiating a flurry of\u00a0leaders\u2019 summits\u00a0in 2021\u201323. But it has been more than a year since the Quad leaders last\u00a0met, and with the US focused on the upcoming presidential election, their next summit is\u00a0unlikely\u00a0to be held before 2025.<\/p>\n

The reason for this drop-off is simple: America\u2019s priorities have changed. Russia\u2019s\u00a0war of aggression\u00a0against Ukraine and the\u00a0hybrid war\u00a0the West is waging in response, not to mention renewed conflict in the Middle East, have stymied US efforts to position the Indo-Pacific at the \u2018heart<\/a>\u2019 of its grand strategy. It is striking that the latest\u00a0US foreign-assistance package\u00a0provides $60.8 billion for Ukraine but only $8.1 billion for security in the Indo-Pacific, including Taiwan, on which China has\u00a0set its sights.<\/p>\n

With limited resources to dedicate to the Indo-Pacific, Biden seems to hope that he can prevent a war over Taiwan through personal diplomacy with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Last month, in a telephone call with his Chinese counterpart, he stressed the importance of\u00a0maintaining peace\u00a0across the Taiwan Strait.<\/p>\n

Biden seems to believe that a more conciliatory approach towards China can also forestall the emergence of a comprehensive\u00a0Sino-Russian alliance. The \u2018no-limits partnership\u2019 between China and Russia,\u00a0reaffirmed\u00a0during Russian President Vladmir Putin\u2019s visit to Beijing this month, is problematic enough; China already has undercut Western sanctions by providing an economic lifeline to Russia in\u00a0exchange\u00a0for cheap energy and some of Russia\u2019s most advanced military technologies, including air-defense and early-warning systems. A full military alliance, with China supporting the Kremlin\u2019s war machine directly, would be the United States\u2019 worst geopolitical nightmare.<\/p>\n

The problem for Biden is that appeasing China and strengthening the Quad, which Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has\u00a0decried\u00a0as the \u2018Indo-Pacific version of NATO\u2019,are fundamentally incompatible. It might not be a coincidence that the Quad leaders have not met since Biden sent a series of cabinet officials to Beijing and\u00a0met with Xi\u00a0in California last November.<\/p>\n

In fact, Biden has lately shifted his focus to less provocative initiatives like the \u2018Squad\u2019, an emerging unofficial\u00a0regional grouping\u00a0involving Australia, Japan, and the Philippines \u2013 countries that already have mutual defense treaties with the US. But what good is an anti-China alliance without India? It is, after all, the\u00a0only power\u00a0that has truly locked horns with the People\u2019s Liberation Army this century: the tense military standoff along the disputed Himalayan border, triggered by China\u2019s stealthy\u00a0territorial encroachments<\/a>, has just entered its fifth year. Moreover, as the leading maritime power in the Indian Ocean, India must play a central role in checking China\u2019s westward naval march from its new\u00a0citadel, the South China Sea.<\/p>\n

The US has also been touting its AUKUS security partnership with Australia and Britain. But this grouping will not be able to play a meaningful role in Indo-Pacific security until Australia is equipped with nuclear-powered submarines, and that will not happen for another decade.<\/p>\n

So far, Biden\u2019s overtures to China have yielded few positive results. On the contrary, Xi has lately intensified coercive pressure on Taiwan, and Chinese provocations in the South China Sea have been\u00a0increasing. Unless the US changes its approach, it may well fail to deter China from attacking Taiwan or cementing a strategic axis with Russia, just as it failed to deter Russia from invading Ukraine.<\/p>\n

To maintain security in the Indo-Pacific, there is no substitute for a strong Quad with a clear strategic mission. Rather than unravelling years of efforts to build a coherent and credible regional strategy, thereby enabling yet more Chinese expansionism, Biden and his fellow Quad leaders must get to work defining such a mission and then commit to pursuing it. Otherwise, the Quad risks becoming a kind of Potemkin grouping. The facade of an alliance will not fool China.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When four of the Indo-Pacific\u2019s leading democracies\u2014Australia, India, Japan and the United States\u2014revived\u00a0the long-dormant Quad in 2017, their objective was clear: to create a strategic bulwark against Chinese expansionism and reinforce a stable regional balance …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":482,"featured_media":87172,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[17,52,69,135,2328,31],"class_list":["post-87170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-australia","tag-china","tag-india","tag-japan","tag-quad","tag-united-states"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIs the Quad becoming a Potemkin alliance? | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/is-the-quad-becoming-a-potemkin-alliance\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is the Quad becoming a Potemkin alliance? | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When four of the Indo-Pacific\u2019s leading democracies\u2014Australia, India, Japan and the United States\u2014revived\u00a0the long-dormant Quad in 2017, their objective was clear: to create a strategic bulwark against Chinese expansionism and reinforce a stable regional balance ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/is-the-quad-becoming-a-potemkin-alliance\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ASPI.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-05-28T02:09:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/GettyImages-1398931270.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"683\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Brahma Chellaney\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Brahma Chellaney\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/\",\"name\":\"The Strategist\",\"description\":\"ASPI's analysis and commentary site\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/is-the-quad-becoming-a-potemkin-alliance\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/GettyImages-1398931270.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/GettyImages-1398931270.jpg\",\"width\":1024,\"height\":683,\"caption\":\"TOKYO, JAPAN - MAY 24: (L-R) Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, U.S. President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi attend the Quad Fellowship Founding Celebration event on May 24, 2022 in Tokyo, Japan. 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