Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged key allies to take “more concrete steps” to counter threats from the Chinese Communist Party, in a rare gathering of the most powerful Indo-Pacific democracies.
“It is more critical now than ever that we collaborate to protect our people and partners from the CCP’s exploitation, corruption, and coercion,” Pompeo told envoys from Australia, India, and Japan during a meeting in Tokyo. “I’m looking forward to our meetings and to more concrete steps with the Quad going forward.”
That expectation likely will stoke China’s suspicions that the four-nation bloc is forming a “mini-NATO” security bloc, despite American statements downplaying that idea. Not every member of the forum offered such an explicit rebuke of China, but the assembled diplomats emphasized the need for long-term cooperation.
“Our objective remains advancing the security and the economic interests of all countries having legitimate and vital interests in the region,” Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said at the gathering. “It is a matter of satisfaction that the Indo-Pacific concept has gained increasingly wider acceptance.”
Jaishankar’s statement underscores the shift in strategic thinking that has occurred in New Delhi, which refused to align with any major powers during the Cold War but has clashed with China in multiple border crises this year.
“India is really positioning itself as a stalwart supporter of the Indo-Pacific concept,” the Heritage Foundation’s Jeff Smith, an expert in South Asian policy, told the Washington Examiner. “The fact that it’s shifted from a skeptic to a champion of the concept, I think, is another sign of progress for the Quad.”
A summary of their meeting contained multiple references to cooperation that entails, implicitly, an effort to mitigate the risk of China gaining strategic advantages over the democratic powers of the region.
“The participants also reviewed recent strategic developments across the Indo-Pacific and discussed ways to enhance Quad cooperation on maritime security, cybersecurity and data flows, quality infrastructure, counterterrorism and other areas,” the State Department’s official readout of the Quad meeting stated. “They pledged to continue regular consultations to advance the vision of a peaceful, secure, and prosperous Indo-Pacific through engagements among senior officials, subject matter experts, and ministers.”
Chinese officials have fumed at such developments in recent months.
“Apart from its interference in the South China Sea, the U.S. established the Quad, an anti-China front line also known as the mini-NATO,” Chinese deputy foreign minister Luo Zhaohui said last month. “This reflects the Cold War mentality of the U.S.”
Pompeo’s team has dismissed “loose talk” about a new NATO-style organization in the Indo-Pacific, in part due to the difficulty of establishing any major new institutions, much less one with an ironclad collective defense obligation.
“The Indo-Pacific region is actually lacking in strong multilateral structures,” Deputy Secretary of State Steve Biegun said last month. “So as long as we keep the purpose right, and as long as we keep the ambitions checked to start with a very strong set of members, I think it’s worth exploring … although it only will happen if the other countries are as committed as the United States.”
Biegun also cast doubt on the idea that “responding to the threat of China in and of itself or any potential challenge from China in and of itself would be enough of a driver,” saying that any new bloc would need a “positive agenda” for the region. Australian Foreign Minister Marisa Payne echoed that language when she maintained “that the Quad has a positive agenda” in her public remarks Tuesday.
“We believe in a region governed by rules, not power,” she said. “We believe in the fundamental importance of individual rights and in a region which — in which disputes are resolved according to international law. And we believe in regional security and recovery from COVID-19 that supports sovereign choices for the countries of the Indo-Pacific.”
Payne and Pompeo discussed “China’s malign activity in the region” in a separate meeting on the sidelines of the forum, and the American diplomat predicted that the democracies of the region would tighten their security ties over the long term.
“I believe today we will come up with practical ways to begin to implement the things we can do together,” he told Nikkei Asian Review. “At the appropriate time, once we’ve institutionalized what we’re doing, the four of us together, we can begin to build out a true security framework, a fabric that can counter the challenge that the Chinese Communist Party presents to all of us.”
