US- backed ‘Quad’ quietly gathers steam as way to balance China’s might

The resurgence of the Quad — first conceived more than a decade ago during the Bush administration — reflects growing unease over Chinese President Xi Jinping’s more assertive foreign policy

International News |Potentially the most important meeting in Asia this week isn’t on any official summit agenda, features no head of state and certainly doesn’t include China.

Senior officials from Australia, India, Japan and the US — a set of countries known as “the Quad” — plan to meet Thursday on the sidelines of a regional summit in Singapore. It will be only the third meeting of the group since its revival last year as a counterweight to China’s growing economic and military might.

The resurgence of the Quad — first conceived more than a decade ago during the Bush administration — reflects growing unease over Chinese President Xi Jinping’s more assertive foreign policy. The four countries aim to provide an alternative model to China’s authoritarian rule and state-directed lending for infrastructure projects, which has in some cases saddled poorer nations with debt and increased their dependence on Beijing.(BUSINESS STANDARD OR BS)

Australia sees the Quad as an “important sort of architecture in the region” that can cooperate economically, militarily and strategically, Prime Minister Scott Morrison told reporters Wednesday. The Quad’s origins date back to the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami that devastated large parts of Asia, after which the four countries joined together to provide humanitarian relief. Key early advocates included Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who had a brief stint as leader more than a decade ago, and then US Vice President Dick Cheney…Read More