For the Quad
to succeed, Australia, India, Japan and the United States need to work together
using force—or tactics that is either above or slightly below the threshold of
armed conflict to block Chinese attempts to seize territory. They members need
a coherent strategy to counter China’s other activities below the threshold of
armed conflict.
This requires
broad understanding of the defence using different elements of national power
to counter a range of coercive threats. Each member needs to understand which
levers should be pulled at what times in a coherent strategy that thwarts
Beijing’s ability to achieve its political objectives at each stage of
competition or conflict.
The more
coercive the power China mobilizes, the fewer levers of national power the Quad
members would need to pull. In a hypothetical example in the first part of
this series, let us explore how Quad members might develop an effective
military response to a Chinese attempt to seize Pratas Island from Taiwan. In
that case, the four members of the Quad would be pulling down heavily on the
military levers of national power—albeit at different stages of the conflict
and in different theatres.
Responding
to the most coercive of China’s threats is the easiest part of the Quad’s job.
It gets harder if China mobilizes less coercive power when threatening the
Quad’s interests in the Indo-Pacific. This is where the distinction between
collective defence and collaborative defence becomes the key.
Over time,
China has reclaimed land and transformed islands into military facilities that
have increased its ability to project power across the Western Pacific. This
has raised the costs for the US to defend its treaty allies, which undermines
its presence in Asia.
For Japan
and Australia, China’s South China Sea facilities pose a threat to the freedom
of navigation each relies on for trade.
In India,
the stakes may not be as high, but any erosion of international norms in the
South China Sea would set an unwelcome precedent as the Chinese military
increases its presence in the Indian Ocean. The differing stakes for each
country in the Quad have made a collective response impossible.
However, an
effective response to China’s grey-zone coercion need not be ‘collective’. In
2017, Ely Ratner, Biden’s top China adviser at the
Pentagon, argued in Foreign Affairs that the US should ‘abandon
its neutrality and help countries in the region defend their claims’.
Ratner
suggested that the US help treaty allies such as the Philippines with joint
land-reclamation projects, increased arms sales and improved basing access.
Other Quad members would also need to draw upon their own bilateral
partnerships to help claimant states build resilience to Beijing’s grey-zone
operations. The Quad would be a subtle means of helping Southeast Asian
claimants defend their sovereignty against China’s creeping expansionism.
Ratner’s
proposal shows collaborative defence in action with the aid of the
Indo-Pacific’s established great power. While Washington is laying the
groundwork to compete with China in the grey zone, Australia could strengthen its
maritime capacity-building initiatives and joint naval exercises with Malaysia
and Indonesia in archipelagic Southeast Asia.
India and Japan could
each increase the frequency of their bilateral naval exercises with Vietnam.
The Quad could agree to conduct Exercise Malabar in the South China Sea, while
members of the ‘blue dot network’ could jointly finance critical infrastructure
projects in littoral states. An effective strategy would require each Quad
member to use a mix of diplomacy, aid, military exchanges, arms sales, joint
exercises and new basing infrastructure.
None of
these initiatives will achieve results immediately, but nor did China’s
island-building campaign. Over time, each initiative will shift the burden of
escalation back to China. With each Quad member working independently and
collaboratively to embolden claimant states to defend their maritime rights,
Beijing will incur new risks when rotating new fighters on Fiery Cross Reef or
contemplating further incursions into the Natuna Islands.
Collaboration
will allow each Quad member to find out how best to draw on its bilateral
partnerships to embolden claimant states to defend their interests. The Quad
will be invisible, but omnipresent in Southeast Asia. That’s precisely the
threat that Beijing doesn’t want to deal with.
To succeed
as a collaborative defence arrangement, the Quad needs to be guided by three
principles. Its members need to work independently on their bilateral
relationships to improve claimant states’ ability to defend their interests;
they must exercise together whenever strategic circumstances require it; and
they need to share notes on regional strategy, knowing it will be much harder
for China to secure further territorial gains if it’s on the back foot.
