Washington is in talks with its Asian partners to curb China’s influence

 
INA-sources
 
The foreign ministers of the United States, Australia, Japan and India began discussions Friday on deepening the so-called quadruple alliance (Quad) aimed at containing the expansion of Chinese influence in the Asia-Pacific region.
 
“Together we form a vibrant network of liberal democracies that are committed to cooperating concretely and to ensuring that all Indo-Pacific nations, large and small, are able to make their own strategic decisions, free of coercion,” Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne said ahead of the summit.
 
For his part, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken stressed that despite Washington’s current focus on the Russian threat in Ukraine, the long-term challenge remains China’s progress, which calls into question the “traditional order.”
 
“From my point of view, there is no doubt that China’s ultimate ambition is to become the leading military, economic, diplomatic and political power, not only in the region but also in the world,” he told The Australian newspaper on the eve of the talks.
 
The coalition was launched in 2007 under the name “Quadruple Security Dialogue,” or QUAD. He set the framework for joint naval exercises between the United States, India and Japan in the Pacific Ocean known as the Malabar exercises.
 
The initiative gained new momentum in 2020 with Australia’s re-joining, and bloody clashes between Chinese and Indian forces over a disputed part of the border, giving traditionally nonaligned New Delhi an impetus for greater cooperation with the Quads.
 
After joint naval exercises in 2020 in the Bay of Bengal, the Melbourne meeting aims to deepen cooperation in areas such as combating COVID-19, and focus on information technology issues including the deployment of 5G telecoms networks, or even climate change.
 
In January, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi explained to his country’s parliament that the Quartet had made it possible to establish a “free and open order based on the rule of law” in the Asia-Pacific region.
 
Source: AFP