China’s tetchiness at Quad echoes ambitions of global domination

Chinese reaction to the meeting of the leaders of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QSD, also known as Quad) was not without characteristic acerbity. Foreign ministers of the Quad nations, consisting of the US, Japan, Australia and India, met in Melbourne on Friday, 11 February to discuss not only the Russian aggression on Ukraine, but also the growing insecurity in the Indo-Pacific region, arising from China’s escalating belligerence and bullying.

In quick and sharp response, China called the Quad a ‘tool’ to contain China’s rise. Beijing said on Friday that the grouping is a ‘deliberate move’ to stoke confrontation and it is doomed to fail. “China believes that the Quad mechanism is only a tool to contain China,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a media briefing. “This is a deliberate move to stoke confrontation and undermine international solidarity and cooperation,” he said.

“I want to stress that the Cold War is long gone and any attempt to create an alliance aimed at containing China will not be popular and such moves are doomed to fail,” he stated. “Relevant countries should abandon the outdated Cold War mentality to correct their wrong practices of advancing bloc confrontation and geopolitical rivalry. Instead, they should play a constative role to promote peace and stability in the Asia Pacific region,” he added.

Ahead of the Quad foreign ministers meeting, Zhao said, on Wednesday, that China rejects creating exclusive cliques and inciting bloc confrontation. “We hope the US and other countries concerned will grasp the trend of the times, adopt a proper mind-set and discard the Cold War mentality,” he emphasised.

The fourth edition of the Quad meet saw fellow-members send notice to Pakistan, China and North Korea, advising them not to partake in activities that engender instability in the region. Japanese foreign minister Yoshimasa Hayashi, in particular, excoriated China, without naming it, by referring to the latter’s aggression in the South China Sea and East China Sea.

China claims 90 percent of the South China Sea as its sovereign territory. China has been building military bases on artificial islands in the South China Sea, in a region also claimed by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam. China has also impeded commercial activity like fishing or mineral exploration by countries like Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines, claiming that the ownership of territory belonged to China for hundreds of years. China also disputes the Senkaku Islands and the Ryuku Islands, in the East China Sea, with Japan

Hayashi also spoke about how vital Taiwan was for the region’s security and economic prosperity. He said Taiwan will feature in talks when heads of Quad meet later this year. Any reference to Taiwan, internationally, invites the ire of China. China sees democratic Taiwan as a breakaway province, but Taiwan sees itself as a sovereign state, with its own constitution, military, and elected leaders.

Australia’s foreign minister Marisse Payne fulminated about Chinese coercion of vulnerable nations under huge Chinese debt, that have to make compromises of their national interests due to their dependence on China.

Australia has itself witnessed intense arm-twisting by China in recent years, ever since it became increasingly vocal in its disapproval of China’s actions, both domestic and international. China’s belligerence in the Indo-Pacific region, its unjustified claims on the East and South China seas, its crackdown on dissent in Hong Kong, its human rights abuses in Xinjiang ,and its increasing aggressiveness towards Taiwan has prompted Australian intrepidity in taking on the mighty eastern giant, despite the consequences. To top it, Australia’s early public calls for an international investigation into Covid-19 origins triggered much Chinese outrage.

The fallout has been China’s crackdown on Australia’s exports to that country. Over the past two years, Beijing has rolled out tariffs and other trade actions against Australian export sectors including barley, wine, beef, seafood and coal. China blames Australia for the breakdown in relations, while Australia has accused China of political motivations behind the trade cuts.

As for India, that has already fought a war with China in 1962, its northern and north-eastern borders are in dispute with its menacing eastern neighbour. China captured the 37,244-square-km Aksai Chin, that India still claims as part of Ladakh, in 1962. China also claims 83,743 square km of the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh that borders the Line of Actual Control (LAC) across from the Tibet Autonomous Region. Since China annexed Tibet in 1950, it has laid stakes on Arunachal Pradesh, calling it ‘southern Tibet’ and hence, its territory. China’s territorial excessiveness and aggression is also exhibited by its opening up additional fronts along the border with India’s states of Uttarakhand and Sikkim. The Indo-Chinese border is cause for relentless simmering tensions between the two neighbours.

On the eve of the Quad meet, the US, in its Indo-Pacific Strategic Report, said India is beset with significant geopolitical challenges, in particular from China and its behaviour on the LAC.

China, the strategic report said, is combining its economic, diplomatic, military, and technological might as it pursues a sphere of influence in the Indo-Pacific and seeks to become the world’s most influential power.

The Chinese coercion and aggression spans the globe, but it is most acute in the Indo-Pacific, it said.

From the economic coercion of Australia to the conflict along the LAC with India to the growing pressure on Taiwan and bullying of neighbours in the East and South China Seas, our allies and partners in the region bear much of the cost of the People’s Republic of China’s harmful behaviour, it said.

In the process, China is also undermining human rights and international law, including freedom of navigation, as well as other principles that have brought stability and prosperity to the Indo-Pacific, the report concluded.

The world is waking up too late to China’s premeditated, covert and efficacious successes in changing the dynamics of the world. Today, in being the factory of the world, in its huge financial resources to buy up stakes in smaller countries, and in its military power to arm-twist other nations, it has reached a point where it can hold the world to ransom.

From bullying helpless neighbours to clutching poor, vulnerable and unsuspecting nations by their throats in its debt trap, China has made it clear that it intends to be the apex nation of the world through investment money as well as through coercion and intimidation. As China spreads its influence around the world through its Belt and Roads Initiative, the Quad, which could be a perfect foil, needs to be vested with increasing and sweeping powers to counter Chinese influence globally and stymie the unpalatable rise of an incessantly aggressive China.