Kishore Mahbubani

Asian Angle | Why the Quad doesn’t spell the future of Asia’s relationship with China

Different geopolitical interests and vulnerabilities mean the security alliance between Australia, India, Japan and the US will not alter the course of the region’s history

But the big geopolitical game in Asia is not military but economic – and a massive economic ecosystem centred on China is evolving in the region

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Aircraft carriers and warships from India, US, Japan and Australia – the four countries comprising the Quad – participate in the Malabar naval exercise in November 2020. Photo: AP

Kishore Mahbubani

Published: 7:00am, 3 Feb 2021Updated: 9:39am, 3 Feb 2021

This article was first published in Foreign Policy.

Australia, India, Japan, and the United States have perfectly legitimate concerns about China. It will be uncomfortable living with a more powerful China, and it’s equally legitimate for them to hedge by cooperating in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, informally known as the Quad. Unfortunately, the Quad will not alter the course of Asian history for two simple reasons: first, the four countries have different geopolitical interests and vulnerabilities. Second, and more fundamentally, they are in the wrong game. The big strategic game in Asia isn’t military, but economic.

Australia is the most vulnerable. Its economy is highly dependent on China. Australians have been proud of their remarkable three decades of recession-free growth. That happened only because Australia became, functionally, an economic province of China: in 2018-2019, 33 per cent of its exports went to China, whereas only 5 per cent went to the United States.

This is why it was unwise for Australia to slap China in the face publicly by calling for an international inquiry into China and the origins of Covid-19. It would have been wiser and more prudent to make such a call privately. Now Australia has dug itself into a hole. All of Asia is watching intently to see who will blink in the current Australia-China stand-off. In many ways, the outcome is predetermined. If Beijing blinks, other countries may follow Australia in humiliating China. Hence, effectively, Australia has blocked itself into a corner.

And China can afford to wait. As the Australian scholar Hugh White said: “The problem for Canberra is that China holds most of the cards. Power in international relations lies with the country that can impose high costs on another country at a low cost to itself. This is what China can do to Australia, but [Australian Prime Minister] Scott Morrison and his colleagues do not seem to understand that.”

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Significantly, in November 2019, former prime minister Paul Keating warned his fellow Australians that the Quad would not work. “More broadly, the so-called ‘Quadrilateral’ is not taking off,” he told the Australian Strategic Forum. “India remains ambivalent about the US agenda on China and will hedge in any activism against China. A rapprochement between Japan and China is also in evidence … so Japan is not signing up to any programme of containment of China.” While India has clearly hardened its position on China since Keating spoke in 2019, it is unlikely to become a clear US ally.

Japan is also vulnerable, but in a different way. Australia is fortunate to have friendly neighbours in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean). Japan only has unfriendly neighbours: China, Russia, and South Korea. It has difficult, even tense, relations with all three. It can manage difficult relations with Russia and South Korea; both have smaller economies. But the Japanese are acutely aware that they now have to adjust to a much more powerful China again.