{"id":181148,"date":"2021-03-22T12:01:42","date_gmt":"2021-03-22T12:01:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=181148"},"modified":"2021-03-22T13:12:28","modified_gmt":"2021-03-22T13:12:28","slug":"quad-summit-consolidates-us-led-military-bloc-to-prepare-for-war-against-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/03\/quad-summit-consolidates-us-led-military-bloc-to-prepare-for-war-against-china\/","title":{"rendered":"Quad Summit Consolidates US-Led Military Bloc to Prepare for War against China"},"content":{"rendered":"

16 Mar 2021 – <\/em>The first leaders\u2019 summit of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue or Quad, which took place online on Friday [12 Mar], has dramatically raised the stakes in the accelerating US-led war drive against China. While the Quad is not yet a formal military alliance, the Biden administration clearly views the consolidation of the partnership as a central element in its efforts to undermine, encircle and prepare for military conflict against China.<\/p>\n

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Scott Morrison (left) participates in the inaugural Quad leaders meeting with the Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi in a virtual meeting in Sydney, March 13, 2021. (Credit: Dean Lewins\/Pool via AP)<\/p><\/div>\n

The summit not only issued a formal statement. Unusually also, Biden and the prime ministers of India, Australia and Japan\u2014Narendra Modi, Scott Morrison and Yoshihide Suga respectively\u2014put their names to an opinion piece published prominently in the Washington Post<\/em> on Sunday [14 Mar]<\/a>. The comment is replete with cynical motherhood statements about their advocacy of democracy, action on climate change and COVID-19 vaccines, and commitment to \u201can Indo-Pacific region that is free, open, secure and prosperous.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, while China is not mentioned, it dominated the discussion at the summit. The pledges by the four leaders to pursue regional co-operation, partnership and engagement do not, of course, extend to Beijing. Buried in the various public statements were thinly-veiled references to Chinese coercion\u2014from the US that has routinely waged war and ousted governments to advance its imperialist interests\u2014and the need to uphold \u201cfreedom of navigation\u201d\u2014that is, for the US Navy to provocatively intrude into waters around Chinese-controlled islets in the South China Sea.<\/p>\n

The Washington Post<\/em> comment includes a fanciful history of the Quad\u2014supposedly borne out of the cooperation of the four countries in response to the catastrophic 2004 tsunami in Asia. \u201cOur cooperation, known as the Quad, was born in crisis. It became a diplomatic dialogue in 2007 and was reborn in 2017,\u201d the leaders write. How and why it mysteriously disappeared, and reappeared a decade later, is left unexplained.<\/p>\n

Yet the genesis of the Quad is very revealing. It did not begin with the tsunami but with the election of the right-wing Japanese politician Shinzo Abe as prime minister in 2006. He called for enhancing the US-Japan military alliance by forging close partnerships with India and Australia. The plan was driven by growing concerns in the Japanese ruling class about China, which was about to overtake Japan as the world\u2019s second largest economy. The Bush administration, under fire from the Democrats for inaction over China, seized on the proposal and the first official meeting took place in May 2007. Its military purpose was underscored in September 2007 by the expansion of the annual US-India Malabar naval war games to include the navies of Australia and Japan.<\/p>\n

Beijing protested against the formation of what was emerging as a military alliance in the Indo-Pacific targeting China. The Quad ignominiously collapsed months later in February 2008 when the newly-elected Labor government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, concerned about relations with Australia\u2019s largest trading partner and the danger of war, abruptly withdrew from the dialogue. Foreign Minister Steven Smith underscored the Canberra\u2019s determination not to join a grouping that could be construed as anti-Chinese by making the announcement while standing alongside Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi.<\/p>\n

Rudd\u2019s withdrawal from the Quad was just one of the \u201ccrimes\u201d for which he was ousted in a US-orchestrated regime-change operation in June 2010. While he was fully committed to the US-Australian alliance, Rudd\u2019s advocacy of the US making compromises with China to avert war came into conflict with the thrust of the Obama administration\u2019s policy to confront China. Rudd was summarily removed as prime minister by four key Labor powerbrokers, later revealed by WikiLeaks to be \u201cprotected sources\u201d of the US embassy in Canberra, in an operation that kept, not only the public, but Labor ministers and party members in the dark.<\/p>\n