With Australia, India, Japan and US set to meet in Tokyo to collectively counter China, it’s not clear Beijing represents a threat.
Memories are short.As foreign ministers of Australia, Japan, India and the United States met in Tokyo to form what will be known as the Quadrilateral Dialogue – four nations cooperating to meet China’s alleged aggressiveness in Asia – few will remember that the original idea of a Quad goes back much farther, to the early 1970s.
At the time, Canberra had convinced itself that the war in Vietnam was needed as a response to a supposed Asian conquest plot by China “relying in the first instance on its puppets in Hanoi.”
SEATO – the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization – had been created in 1954 to stop that alleged communist threat to Asia but had only managed to attract the Philippines and Thailand as Asian members.
A Quad was seen as necessary to attract the larger Asian powers – Japan and India – with Australia taking the lead. .
A high level conference in Canberra was arranged and some ANU publications boosting the idea were organised.
But little concrete was achieved and, with the ending of the Vietnam war in 1975 and the collapse of SEATO in 1977, talk of anti-communist or anti-China alliances died out.
Today we are supposed to face a new challenge from China. Hence the revival of the Quad. But what precisely is this new threat we are supposed to face? Today there is no Vietnam war or threat of Asian instability. It seems the only threat is the fact that China exists and its economic power is growing.
There is not much that the Quad powers can do about that.
True, Beijing lays claim to some islands in the East China sea to which some other Asian nations also lay claim. But, then, so too does Taiwan. The total area of the islands claimed by Taiwan but contested by other Asian nations is far greater than that of those claimed by Beijing.
This was in effect also the 2016 conclusion of the UN tribunal set up to consider rival claims.
And if we go back into history, or to the US-brokered 1951 and ’52 peace treaties with Japan, both Chinas can claim some legal basis for their claims.
Beijing’s opposition to Japan’s claim to the Senkaku Islands in the East China sea is also seen as proof of aggressiveness. But Beijing does not claim the islands for itself; it does so on behalf of Taiwan, whose claim has a strong historic and geographic basis.
In fact, it was so strong that under pressure from the Taiwan lobby in the US, Washington refused Japan’s claim to sovereignty over the Senkaku islands when the Ryukyu Islands including In fact, it was so strong that under pressure from the Taiwan lobby in the US, Washington refused Japan’s claim to sovereignty over the Senkaku islands when the Ryukyu Islands including Okinawa were returned to Japan in 1971.
The US only recognizes Japan’s administrative rights.
Even the name of the islands is not Japanese. Senkaku is a translation of the name Pinnacle Islands given by British explorers in the area in the 18th century.
The Chinese name – Diaoyutai or Fishing Platform – goes back much farther.
Elsewhere, it is hard to find examples of China’s alleged aggressiveness. There is much reference to the Sino-Indian frontier war of 1962 and Indian claims of Chinese aggressive pressure ever since.
But as China desk officer in Canberra’s foreign ministry at the time, I know for a fact that the relevant Western ministries all have the material proving the 1962 conflict was due entirely to New Delhi’s “forward” policy in the Himalayas beginning in the late 1950s – a fact that even Indian observers have since confirmed.
It is very likely that the several small frontier conflicts since have been due more to India’s sense of wounded pride rather than Beijing actively seeking to cause trouble.
So where, apart from the fertile imaginations of the Quad members, have we seen proof of Beijing’s alleged aggressiveness? If there is any belligerent talk coming out of Beijing today the most likely cause is the belligerent attitudes of the Quad members.
Based in Japan and a former president and vice-president of two Japanese universities, former Australian diplomat Gregory Clark continues to follow events in Asia.
Gregory Clark was the first postwar Australian diplomat trained in Chinese, with postings to Hong Kong, Moscow and the UN before retiring in protest against the Vietnam War. After PhD studies at the ANU he became Japan correspondent for The Australian. A spell in Canberra’s Prime Ministers department led to professorships at Tokyo’s Sophia University and emeritus president of Tama University, Tokyo, before becoming co-founder of the very successful English language Akita Kokusai Daigaku. He has now retired to Latin America (Peru) and Kiwi fruit growing in Boso peninsular south of Tokyo.
His works include ‘In Fear of China’ (1969) and several books in Japan on education and foreign policy.
He used to speak Chinese and Russian with fluency. He now speaks Japanese and Spanish.
Comments
6 responses to “Quad is built on wobbly foundations(Asia Times 5.10.2020)”
Personalised Nám Plates
***
There’s this disturbing cringe a man gets
When hearing whinging Vietnam Vets
It’s … like mercenary begging for mercy
And if we didn’t take this cover
My love and I might bécome lovers
Of Molotovs’ Cocktails:
So two-pots of beer
We won the war
At the pocket-piss’n RSL bar
We fought and fell both near and far
To drive on home in our Japanese cars:
Good article Greg!
I remember reading the Red Domino Theory in Time magazine in the 1960s where the authors were convincing about the dire threat of communism seeping down to SE Asia towards the equator with the domino tiles falling down on the path. It is the inability to rid of the communists in Vietnam and not winning the war caused the dominio theory to collapse. Since then, Asean countries also learned a lot from the war and war stories from Time magazine started to lose credibility. President Nixon’s engagment with China spelled the end of the Dominio theory. Today’s Quad is a resurgence of the old story with a new nemesis, China replacing the USSR however times have changed the geopolitical advantage does not exists anymore. France wanting to come to SE Asia will be reminded of their mismanagement of their Vietnam colony and reported spending of $42 billion by China in the South Pacific compared to $2.8billion (Australia and US combined), is hardly competition. This new dream will have difficulty to be transformed into reality. The memory of European colonization is still vivid in Asia compared to the absence of such horrible memories of Chinese colonization. Turning Quad into a Peace lloving organisation with inclusiveness is a better way forward for all Asia Pacific nations.
“In fact, it was so strong that under pressure from the Taiwan lobby
in the US, Washington refused Japan’s claim to sovereignty over the
Senkaku islands when the Ryukyu Islands including In fact, it was so
strong that under pressure from the Taiwan lobby in the US, Washington
refused Japan’s claim to sovereignty over the Senkaku islands when the
Ryukyu Islands including Okinawa were returned to Japan in 1971.”
Could you rewrite this paragraph please?
Sir,
An excuse to go to war seems to me to be a form of insanity. We pander to the most basal of our animal instincts – domination – the same instinct that gives rise to domestic violence on women and children. It is the impulse of violent, physically strong people who feel insecure about their place among other humans. In their insecure and deranged state of mind, they imagine that others with a different ideology mean them harm and therefore have to be destroyed before that happens. For that idea, they even have a name – a pre-emptive strike or war – which at one time provided lively debate on whether such an action is justifiable.
In order to carry out anything pre-emptive, they have to create myths to justify their actions. One was called the “Domino Theory” which led to the Vietnam War; a war that resulted in the estimated total death of 3.8 million people, 2 million of which were Vietnamese civilians.
The second most recent myth that was created was the “Weapons of Mass Destruction” (WMD). The Iraq War was estimated to have caused the death of half a million people.
Now we have the so called Quad Dialogue to create another myth and another excuse for confrontation.
Human beings with our big brains and sense of superiority over other animals are not rational beings but just another species of very violent and destructive animals. In destroying others, be they other people, animals, forests or a habitable world, we ultimately destroy ourselves. We, Australians, have even just made the ability to think more expensive by charging more for doing humanities degrees than other “job friendly” technological and science base courses (This does not imply that I do not value science or tech. based courses. Everything has its place). Presumably, many of these people will go into the lucrative weapons manufacture industries.
Only fools like us think in this manner. I wear the label “fool” with pride.
Sincerely concerned,
Teow Loon Ti
True enough Teow Loon Ti.
What you ascribe to “we” is ancient and instinctive.
Where the ámorality is, is in the commodification of this instinct by the dogs of war, into the art form it has become.
These exponents and manipulators of public psyche by broadcast fear, it is they we must keep focused on .
The impressionable “we”, can’t miss what they have never known.
absit omen.