China remains wary of the Quad and its future contours | The Indian Express

China remains wary of the Quad and its future contours | The Indian Express

Written by Sujan R Chinoy |Updated: November 7, 2019 9:33:29 am

The writer, a former Indian Ambassador with extensive experience on China, UN and national security issues, is director general of Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi. Views are personal.

China remains wary of the Quad and its future contours

Beijing remains worried about the advantages the quadrilateral dialogue process might offer to India in the Indo-Pacific.

China believes that the concept of the Indo-Pacific, and more particularly the Quad, is a sinister plot hatched by the US aimed at containing its rise. (Illustration by C R Sasikumar)

In a speech at the Heritage Foundation on October 22, the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the “Quad” between Japan, Australia, India and the United States would ensure that “China retains only its proper place in the world”. The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying retorted on October 25 to condemn the American plainspeaking as habitual lies and malicious slandering. Such a war of words between the US and China is now routine. Yet, the spotlight is on the future of the Quad, which convened again on November 4 at the level of senior officials on the margins of the EAS in Bangkok a little over a month after the high-profile meeting on September 26 in New York. The September meeting was the first at the level of the foreign ministers.