China’s Quad Paranoia
STORIES, ANALYSES, EXPERT VIEWS
The Chinese once again demonstrated their paranoia about the Quad by releasing a statement on the eve of the QUAD meeting is designed not only to put the participating countries on a defensive but also the ASEAN countries like Indonesia and the Philippines, who have been facing the brunt of Chinese Communist Party expansionism in the South China Sea. The message to ASEAN, writes Shishir Gupta(Executive Editor of the Hindustan Times) “is not to get infected by QUAD and stay within the Beijing defined parameters of chopsticks culture.
“The fact is that QUAD’s focus is on a constructive agenda of cooperation with Indo-Pacific partners on health and vaccine support, disaster relief, climate change, emerging and critical technologies, infrastructure development and a free and open Indo-Pacific. This is in stark contrast to China which is engaged in rapid military expansionism and aggrandizement in the region and beyond, drawing the world to another Cold War era.
China ‘wants to maintain the old order and keep India confined within the South Asia box’
“QUAD is working beyond alliances post-Cold War. It is China that wants to maintain the old order and keep India confined within the South Asia box by keeping its proxy Pakistan in a state of permanent confrontation with New Delhi……It has used Pakistan and Myanmar to provide access to the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal and pincer India. Seeing politics in global good grouping like QUAD is very much part of Cold War thinking as it goes against globalization and rebalancing of power. It is China that still wants the victors of World War II to be on the high table and does not want to yield space to middle-powers like India, Japan, Australia, and Brazil. It is for this very reason that the UNSC reforms are stuck for the past two decades.”
