BEIJING WARY OF ‘QUAD’ AGENDA
Faced with a growing regional clamour for a new Asian security consensus, China is finding itself in a dilemma. The idea currently gaining currency—articulated by the US as a “free and open IndoPacific”, and backed by countries including India, Indonesia, Japan and Australia—has been viewed coldly in Beijing, seen as aimed at stifling its rise.
On July 13, India looked to address some of China’s concerns when officials from the two sides met in Beijing for a second maritime dialogue. The first round was held in February 2016, but no meetings took place last year when the focus was on the land domain and the border standoff in Doklam.
India’s message was a carefully calibrated one, taking off from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech at the ShangriLa Dialogue. As much as China has dwelt on and wholeheartedly welcomed his declaration that India neither sees “the IndoPacific Region as a strategy or as a club of limited members” nor “directed against any country”, Beijing is aware that much of Modi’s message doesn’t sit easily with its view of the region.
Modi emphasised ASEAN as “the heart of the IndoPacific”, which he said stands for “a free, open, inclusive region”. He said it was India’s view that “rules and norms based on the consent of all, not on the power of the few” and that “when nations make international commitments, they must uphold them”. At least among a number of ASEAN diplomats, this was seen as referencing China’s reneged commitment to not militarise the disputed South China Sea islands.
At Beijing’s most prominent international relations conference on July 15 at Tsinghua University, Chinese strategic experts dismissed calls for an Asian security architecture as a ruse to contain China’s rise. Much of their ire was directed at “the Quad”, referring to India, US, Japan and Australia starting a fourway dialogue.
Wu Shicun, a leading Chinese strategist who heads the government’s only thinktank dedicated to the South China Sea, declared that “the Quad countries share suspicions about China and its Belt and Road Initiative”. Shyam Saran, former Indian foreign secretary, told the forum, “We are not forming a military alliance, but nobody can have a veto on who we want to talk to.” India, he said, shared certain common interests with the three countries, just as it did with China and Russia in Eurasia, where it is a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation grouping. Any rulesbased order, pointed out former Chinese vice foreign minister He Yafei, should not just be “one kind of order”—as, say, the US, sees it—but a “new modus vivendi for AsiaPacific security”.
Yet, as one Asian diplomat at the conference pointed out, neither He nor Wu could offer any suggestion as to what were the “rules” that China would find agreeable. Nor did they give a reason for why China feels unease at basic principles that refer to settling disputes peacefully, allowing freedom of navigation for both commercial and military vessels, and following international law in settling disputes. Beijing’s current strategy appears to be deflecting regional calls for fair security architecture by focusing on largely imagined—and practically unfeasible—attempts to contain the rise of the world’s secondlargest economy. Its neighbours might not find it very convincing.
Much of the ire of Chinese strategic experts is directed at India, US, Japan and Australia starting a four-way dialogue