Meeting directly at the White House, the Quad puts China in its `sight`

(Dan Tri) – US President Joe Biden next week will chair the first direct high-level meeting with leaders of countries in the Quad, a group often referred to as the `NATO of the East`.

The leaders of the Quad group including the US, Japan, India and Australia will meet in person for the first time next week (Photo: AP, PTI).

According to an announcement from White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, the direct meeting between US President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will take place on January 24.

The White House also said that at the meeting, QUAD leaders will focus on issues related to the Covid-19 pandemic, climate change, cyberspace and security in the Indo-Pacific.

Quad – `NATO of the East`?

After the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, India, Japan, Australia and the United States formed an informal alliance to cooperate in disaster relief efforts.

In 2007, then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe formalized the alliance, called the `Security Quadrilateral Dialogue` or `Diamond Quad`.

In 2017, faced with the growing threat from China, the Quad group was `revived`, expanding its goals and creating a mechanism to establish a rules-based international order.

In 2020, the India-US-Japan trilateral Malabar naval exercises expanded to include Australia, marking the first formal gathering of the Quad since its revival in 2017 and the first

Most recently, in March, the group’s leaders officially met online and issued a joint statement `The Spirit of the Quad`, which outlined the group’s approach and goals.

Quad members have also shown a willingness to expand partnerships through the so-called `Quad Plus`, which includes South Korea, New Zealand and other countries.

The dialogue mechanism aims to counter China’s expansion

China has criticized the upcoming Quad summit.

China from the beginning opposed the establishment of the Quad group, which was implicitly understood as a dialogue mechanism to counter China’s influence in Asia.

In 2018, China’s Foreign Minister called the Quad a `striking idea` and after the joint statement `The Spirit of the Quad` was released last March, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs denounced

Each member of the Quad group is concerned about China’s rise with its absurd claims in the East Sea as well as Beijing’s efforts to expand its sphere of influence through initiatives such as the Belt and Road project.

The Quad’s resurgence stems from the Himalayan border dispute between China and India.

Both Japan and Australia are concerned about China’s expanding presence in the East and South China Seas.

For Australia, relations with Beijing are at their lowest point after Canberra passed a foreign interference law in 2018 that implicitly blocked Chinese influence.

The US has long been concerned about global competition with China and has always asserted that Beijing is disrupting the international rules-based order.