The Asian Pacific geopolitical makeup has changed at a rapid rate. The presence of the Quad, Quad Plus, and AUKUS structures guarantees stability; however, together, they can violate standard rules and create uncertainty in the strategy. Is this expansion crucial towards attaining higher stability within the region, or does it push the world’s systems to their limits and create a lot more instability?
The Asia-Pacific region has become the new prime global strategic target in recent years with the accelerated creation of trading routes, strong economies, and military strength. As a reaction to this multipolar state system of security, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) has gradually expanded into a new configuration of members called Quad Plus. But the question is whether this high rate of growth can be regarded as evidence of strategic insight or a gambling exercise that will upset the fine balance of power.
The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad, with the four giant democracies of the United States, Japan, India, and Australia, lies at the center of the Asia-Pacific architecture. It was established in 2007 as a consultative organization to a “free and open Asia-Pacific.” It has now established itself as one of the pillars of regional architecture to sustain the agendas of maritime security, economic resilience, technology, and healthcare and even established an Asia Pacific Partnership on Maritime Domain Awareness. However, it went quiet for a decade and then again revived in 2017 following Chinese assertiveness and a new US interest in the Asia-Pacific.
It was then expanded to accommodate countries such as South Korea, New Zealand, and Vietnam in an informal and unofficial Quad Plus umbrella. By 2021, the leaders of the Quad nations had shared their mutual concern over China’s assertive behavior in the South China Sea and were more interested in establishing a positive agenda of cooperation. In November 2020, all four navies participated in their first joint military exercise. However, the first Quad summit took place in March 2021, with a focus on COVID-19 vaccines, climate change, technological innovation, and supply-chain resilience.
The U.S. is weaving a network of alliances: AUKUS, the enhanced bilateral, and the new trilateral that extends its presence far beyond the Quad. This strategy has combined minilateral innovation via AUKUS with higher-level bilateral with Vietnam and Indonesia and layered trilateral with Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines, forming a dense security system across the Asia-Pacific.
On the other hand, China is advancing its naval capabilities and invoking its interest in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait, which has increased the tensions between Beijing and all Quad members. Australia remains the target of Chinese economic sanctions following its proposal last year to the World Health Organization that it should investigate the origin of COVID-19. India and Japan have had conflicts with China concerning territorial tussles. Relations between the U.S. and China are tense already, but still the U.S. Navy engages in regular freedom-of-navigation patrols and joint maneuvers in Asia-Pacific.
The Quad has stretched its arm to health and technology by organizing vaccination campaigns, digital infrastructure, cybersecurity, and satellites. Its “shared public goods,” including South Korea and New Zealand as partners in the Quad Plus group, are simply said to realize the soft power without appearing as a military bloc. Members of the Quad Investors Network are hoping to finance their environmentally friendly initiatives that can compete with China’s Belt and Road. The focus areas are supply chains, digital corridors, and critical infrastructure, facilitated by the EU and France, in addition to hard security agreements such as AUKUS.
This wave of new coalitions, however, has destabilized the Asia-Pacific balance. Hasty security stitching may provoke sharp countermeasures. The Chinese foreign ministry has denounced the creation of AUKUS as a “Cold War mindset” and said that it will negatively impact peace and stability in the region. Some of the diplomats in Southeast Asia are afraid of becoming sandwiched between the blocs and even complain of being marginalized by the Quad countries in the ASEAN forums. When the Quad gets overtly aggressive and China-focused at the expense of ASEAN mechanisms, it will become more difficult to get strategic buy-in across Southeast Asia.
The inclusive, consensus-based model of ASEAN seems to be central to many.Evan A. Laksmana, one of the Indonesian security experts, stated that involving ASEAN is more profitable than hastening Quad Plus and warned great powers that inclusion is the key to legitimacy in the region. However, bypassing ASEAN-led structures or devising a new plus brand can serve to alienate smaller states and undermine the multilateral norms to which those states are attached. Failure to do so will result in countries hedging on China rather than engaging.
A German policy brief dispenses with the terms of the Quad as being more of a figure of regional instability than a solution to the problem, as it does not address the root cause of the U.S.-China rivalry. In such a perspective, mixed minilaterals can repeat established ones (bilateral agreements or NATO) without being able to provide a consistent policy.Since the Quad and AUKUS are repeatedly billed as an Asian NATO, it is worth noting that, at least, “neither the Quad nor AUKUS is, in any meaningful sense, an alliance.”Briefly, the rate of change can be too fast and too furious, and that may be a gamble that their partners may be overstretched and destabilize regions.
The Asia-Pacific is a chessboard, and the moves must be counted strategically. Quad and Quad Plus need to proceed step by step with priority to practical cooperation like maritime security, disaster relief, and exchange of technology, at the same time keeping ASEAN central to the architecture and keeping the architecture loose and transparent. Although such an approach can be ambivalent, it should pursue the concept of stability in a way that will not trigger excessive tension and lead to the prosperity of the region. Cumulatively, the new security order of the Asia-Pacific is characterized by anxiety and panic. The expansion to Quad Plus brings the opportunities of more cooperation with greater emphasis, but it also implies a possibility of overextension and instability. This rapid development can either be a stabilizing factor or a disequilibrating risk, dependingthe degree of ambition and control the states engage in to strike a balance between the two. In the end it will be what path the Quad Plus takes to go out and get not only how much it grows but also how much it can be felt necessary to be a part of, but also what level of trust it has developed and what sense of ownership it has built as far as the Asia Pacific is concerned.
