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Written by|Li Jiaxing, intern commentator of "Zhiben Qingzhi", studied at the Northeast Asia College of Shandong University;
Zhao Jingyuan, intern commentator of "Zhiben Qingzhi", studied at the School of International Studies, Huaqiao University;
Yang Xiaojie, assistant researcher of the Great Diplomacy Think Tank (GDYT), executive deputy editor of the editorial department of Zhiben Qingzhi and member of the audit committee;
Wu Xiang, researcher at the Great Diplomatic Think Tank (GDTY) and executive editor of the editorial department of Zhiben Qingzhi.
The "quadrilateral mechanism" of the United States, Japan, India and Australia is not only the practical mechanism of the Asia-Pacific rebalance strategy and the Indo-Pacific strategy, but also the strategic deployment of the four countries that is constantly adjusted with changes in the geopolitical environment. At present, the biggest variable in the situation in the Indo-Pacific region is the rise of China, and the "quadrilateral mechanism" has therefore a political color of geopolitical containment. Based on the formation and development characteristics of the "quadrilateral mechanism" mentioned above (new dynamics!) The layout of the "quadrilateral mechanism" of the United States, Japan, India and Australia (Part I) @大外交智库 "Zhiben Youth Analysis"), this article will continue to discuss the new trends and influences of the "quadrilateral mechanism", and further analyze the internal mechanism of the "quadrilateral mechanism".
I. New trends in the "quadrilateral mechanism" of the United States, Japan, India, and Australia
(1) Promote the long-term development of the "quadrilateral mechanism"
After Biden took office, the United States has deeply promoted the quadrilateral security dialogue, whether it is the foreign ministers' dialogue or the summit, the "Indo-Pacific" is an important topic, and efforts have been made to make the quadrilateral security dialogue a long-term mechanism. In February 2021, the heads of the foreign affairs departments of the United States, Japan, India, and Australia met and reaffirmed their commitment to the Quadrilateral Dialogue at least once a year and the Quadrilateral Dialogue at the senior and working levels on a regular basis. The Quadrilateral Mechanism promotes freedom and openness in the Indo-Pacific region by strengthening mutual cooperation and supports freedom of navigation and territorial integrity in the waters of the four nations. The four countries agreed that senior officials should meet regularly and hold a dialogue between foreign ministers at least once a year. It can be seen that the four countries of the United States, Japan, India and Australia actively advocate that the quadrilateral security dialogue become a deliberative mechanism for long-term cooperation among the four countries, even when and how many times the meeting will be held.
In May 2022, Biden began his visit to Japan and South Korea, during which the attitude of the members of the "quadrilateral mechanism" towards China became the focus of attention ([email protected])
The participation of the United States, Japan, India, and Australia in the quadrilateral security dialogue from the participation of foreign ministers and defense ministers to the participation of the heads of state of the four countries reflects the continuous improvement of the specifications and level of the meeting and the great importance that the four countries attach to quadrilateral security cooperation. If the "quadrilateral mechanism" can establish long-term cooperation, it will inevitably build a stable alliance between the four countries in the Asia-Pacific region and increase the implementation of the "Indo-Pacific" geostrategy. With the rising attention of the four countries of the United States, Japan, India and Australia to the "Indo-Pacific" region, especially the four countries proposed to hold regular exchanges and meetings, it has produced a certain enlightening effect on the formation of the quadrilateral security dialogue mechanism.
(2) Promote the upgrading of the content of the "quadrilateral mechanism"
During the Trump administration, the "quadrilateral mechanism" mainly appeared in the form of ministerial-level dialogue. After Biden took office, the heads of state of the United States, Japan, India and Australia all participated in the meeting at the same time, and the specifications of the quadrilateral security dialogue were upgraded from the ministerial level to the summit level. As COVID-19 rages around the world, the Quartet also needs to expand the issue of public health and security so that members of the dialogue can engage in secondary or assisted ways. Judging from the progress of the dialogue, "QUAD+" is developing from the "2+2" form to the multilateral trend, and the participation of the defense ministers of the four countries has been added on the basis of the meeting of the foreign ministers of the four countries, which has generated new interaction between the foreign ministers and the defense ministers' meeting. The United States, Japan, India, and Australia have now held the "2+2" US-India Foreign Ministers' Defense Ministers' Meeting, the "2+2" India-Japan Foreign Ministers' and Defense Ministers' Meeting, the "2+2" India-Australia Foreign Ministers' Defense Ministers' Consultation Meeting, the US-Japan-Australia Defense Ministers' Trilateral Meeting, and the US-Japan-India-Australia Quadrilateral Foreign Ministers' Meeting.
In recent years, the organizational forms of the "quadrilateral mechanism" of the United States, Japan, India and Australia include "2+2", trilateral and quadrilateral dialogue meetings, foreign ministers' meetings, defense ministers' meetings, and multilateral meetings in which foreign ministers and defense ministers interact and participate. On the whole, the "quadrilateral mechanism" of the United States, Japan, India and Australia has shown a trend of expansion, and more and broader security issues have been included in the mechanism talks to enrich the strategic functions of the "quadrilateral mechanism", while the four countries are also trying to attract other countries in the "Indo-Pacific" region to join the cooperation on issues under the mechanism.
(3) The scale of military exercises has been upgraded
In recent years, the United States, Japan, India, and Australia have conducted bilateral or trilateral exercises to continuously strengthen security ties. From February 3 to 19, 2021, the United States, Japan and Australia held a military exercise codenamed "Counter North 2021" at Andersen Air Force Base to strengthen cooperation among the three countries in carrying out missions in the Indo-Pacific region. The U.S. Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, Royal Australian Air Force and Japan Air Self-Defense Force all participated, with more than 2,000 military personnel and 95 combat aircraft participating in the exercise, and Australia's KC-30A multi-role tanker transport aircraft also participated in the training. From May 11 to 17, 2021, the United States, Japan, and Australia, together with France's military forces, held a multilateral exercise codenamed ARC21 in the East China Sea, focusing on remote island defense landing training, ship and aircraft anti-submarine training, and other procedures to share the vision of a "Free and Open Indo-Pacific" and further deepen mutual security cooperation.
In May 2021, the United States, Japan and Australia joined forces with France's military forces to hold multilateral exercises in the East China Sea, causing protests from China (Source@Nikkei Asian Review)
In recent years, the United States, Japan, India and Australia have conducted joint military training and exercises in the Indo-Pacific region in a variety of forms, including bilateral, trilateral and quadrilateral, and the scale of exercises has expanded from single arms to multiple arms, covering the navy, land, air force and marines. This fully shows that the security cooperation between the United States, Japan, India and Australia in the "Indo-Pacific" region has been significantly strengthened. Deepening mutual strategic cooperation through military exercises and other means not only highlights the existence of their military strength, but also obtains more geopolitical benefits.
Second, the influence of the "quadrilateral mechanism" of the United States, Japan, India and Australia on the mainland
(1) This has further complicated the South China Sea issue
The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, on which the United States and Japan, India and Australia hold a quadrilateral security dialogue involving the South China Sea issue on many issues, with obvious strategic intentions against China, which undoubtedly challenges China's national sovereignty and territorial sea security. In recent years, the United States, Japan, India and Australia have accelerated the pace of geopolitical expansion in the South China Sea. The United States has repeatedly stated that it is "committed to building a free, open, secure and prosperous Indo-Pacific region," one of the purposes of which is to gain more strategic space in the South China Sea. The "quadrilateral mechanism" will intensify the struggle between the United States, Japan, India, and Australia and China for regional power and engage in fierce strategic games in the South China Sea. At the same time, the formation of the quadrilateral security dialogue mechanism will also guide and encourage countries such as Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia to continuously intervene in the South China Sea, so that other countries and China will engage in new competition in territorial disputes, resulting in a more complex security environment in the South China Sea.
As mentioned above, in recent years, the military activities of various countries in the South China Sea under the framework of the "quadrilateral mechanism" have become more frequent, and US warplanes and warships have repeatedly illegally intruded into the airspace and territorial waters of the South China Sea for reconnaissance and patrolling. On April 4, 2021, the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Roosevelt entered the South China Sea through the Strait of Malacca, and the amphibious readiness group centered on the amphibious assault ship USS Makin Island also entered the South China Sea on April 8. In addition, the United States has joined hands with Japan, India, Australia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand and other ASEAN countries to conduct military training and exercises in and around the South China Sea. The United States, Japan, India and Australia have even carried out military activities in the South China Sea with Britain, France, Canada, Italy and other countries outside the region, not only strengthening their strategic coordination capabilities, but also demonstrating their respective military presence in the South China Sea in order to expand their influence in the region. However, a series of activities carried out by the United States and its military allies and strategic partners in the South China Sea have undoubtedly exacerbated tensions in the South China Sea and seriously undermined the current relatively stable security environment in and around the South China Sea.
At present, although China maintains good diplomatic relations with Southeast Asian countries, some controversial issues concerning islands and reefs in the South China Sea have not yet been fundamentally resolved, and the United States wants to use this to create contradictions. Therefore, security dialogue and military cooperation between the United States, Japan, India, Australia and other countries are not conducive to peace and stability in the South China Sea.
(2) Disrupting China's diplomatic and cooperative relations with neighboring countries
The alliance of the quadrilateral mechanism of the United States, Japan, India, and Australia has disrupted cooperation in East Asia and Southeast Asia, and has had an impact on China's strategic depth. The United States, Japan, India and Australia have continuously put pressure on East and Southeast Asian countries, which has affected China's cooperation with other East and Southeast Asian countries. This has forced ASEAN countries to "choose sides" between the two competitive systems, causing setbacks for China's cooperation network. In addition, with the further expansion of China's economic strength, ASEAN's vigilance and precaution against China will become more and more prominent, making Southeast Asian countries fall into the geopolitical layout of the United States, Japan, India and Australia, and become the forefront of containment of China. If ASEAN becomes a dialogue partner of the quadrilateral cooperation mechanism, it will challenge or even threaten China's safeguarding of its strategic interests in the Indian Ocean. In the long run, the expansion of the US-Japan-India-Australia mechanism is the set goal of the four countries, that is, to promote the development of the "quadrilateral alliance + N" mechanism, and these key countries are very likely to choose strategic allies around China, which will pose a serious threat to China's peripheral cooperation and peripheral security.
In May 2022, leaders of ASEAN countries were invited to the White House to hold a special U.S.-ASEAN Summit (Source@ObservationNet)
(3) Non-traditional security areas squeeze China
Non-traditional security areas have become at the forefront of national power competition. The "quadrilateral mechanism" of the United States, Japan, India and Australia will accelerate the layout of non-traditional security fields and will expand the scope of competition with China. At present, the four countries have begun to lay out in the field of non-traditional security, setting many non-traditional security issues as priority cooperation issues, seeking to serve the United States to establish or consolidate its leadership position in relevant fields, and supporting the four countries to have greater agenda-setting rights, rule-making rights, price manipulation rights, market occupation rights in the fields including biosecurity and scientific and technological security, so as to obtain greater competitive advantages than China. At present, whether it is quadrilateral security cooperation, or bilateral biosecurity cooperation between India and Japan, India and Australia, it involves fierce competition with China in vaccine production, biomedical industry, medical big data service industry and high-end biological talents.
Another important non-traditional security direction of the layout of the four countries is the field of scientific and technological security and technological security. The technical and security cooperation network built by the four countries links the issue of "values" to economic cooperation, and tries to establish a global supply chain and industrial chain network "without China's participation". The "quadrilateral mechanism" aims at China's scientific and technological innovation represented by 5G, quantum technology and artificial intelligence, and tries to engage in technological blockade. If the quadrilateral scientific and technological security cooperation network is successfully built in the future, it may have a negative impact on the scientific and technological revolution process of transforming from "Made in China" to "Made in China".
On March 12, 2022, US President Joe Biden, Prime Minister of Japan, Prime Minister of India and Prime Minister of Australia attended the "Quad Alliance" video summit (Source@Xinhuanet)
III. Conclusion
In order to promote the construction of an Indo-Pacific strategic system led by it, the United States has actively wooed Japan, India and Australia to promote the dialogue of the "quadrilateral mechanism" and promote the institutionalization of quadrilateral security cooperation. In essence, the US, Japan, India and Australia promote the establishment of a quadrilateral security dialogue mechanism with strong interest drivers and strategic intentions. On the one hand, the United States should gain more geopolitical control in the "Indo-Pacific" region and actively promote the "Indo-Pacific" strategic system led by it; On the other hand, the four countries not only want to expand their influence in the region, but also gain huge economic and strategic benefits, and join forces to contain China's rise.
It is worth mentioning that the recent assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Abe will also have an impact on the "quadrilateral mechanism", as the primary promoter of Japan's "Indo-Pacific strategy" and "quadrilateral mechanism", Abe has adopted a relatively "radical" diplomatic and security strategy during his term of office, comprehensively strengthening the US-Japan alliance. Combined with Japan's existing policies, Abe's successors Yoshihide Suga and Fumio Kishida also continued the "political legacy of Abe" and continued to maintain the basic direction of containment policy towards China. However, this assassination will also bring a blow to the Japanese right-wing forces, causing turmoil in the Japanese political scene, and the division of Japanese right-wing forces in the "post-Abe" era may also change the direction of Japan's foreign policy, whether to continue to strengthen the Japan-US alliance, maintain the geostrategy of containing China, or gradually establish cooperative relations with China, which also makes the future development trend of the "quadrilateral mechanism" more uncertain.
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