Chinese stooge spooked by Quad Summit; 'low-quality strategic construction that serves US'

In a strong signal to China, the Quad summit kick-started on Friday, March 12 with the leaders of India, Japan, Australia, and the United States deliberating in a flurry of diplomatic activity in the days to come.

The Quad leaders -- Prime Minister Narendra Modi, US President Joe Biden, Australian PM Scott Morrison, and Japanese PM Yoshihide Suga, have vowed to strive for an Indo-Pacific region that is free, open, inclusive, healthy, anchored by democratic values, and unconstrained by coercion, sending an apparent message to China.

A visibly disconcerted China, which has been the central point of the Quad discussion has now responded to the first high-level diplomatic meeting, terming it as a "low-quality strategic construction, serving the US."

Hu Xijin, the Editor-in-Chief of China's mouthpiece Global Times, attempted to mitigate the impact of the Quad mechanism, by saying that it won’t help India "encroach" one inch of the Chinese territory, nor will it help Japan "drive away" CCP's coast guard vessels from waters near Diaoyu Islands. The Quad Summit serves more as "psychological comfort" to the respective countries, the Chinese stooge said. 

In a joint statement titled 'The Spirit of the Quad', the leaders on Friday pledged to strengthen cooperation on the "defining challenges of our time" and said they will continue to prioritise the role of international law in the maritime domain and facilitate collaboration, including in maritime security, to meet challenges to the rules-based maritime order in the East and South China Seas.

QUAD against China

The 90-minute long meet gives a clear signal that Asia and the Indo-Pacific are the Joe Biden administration's top foreign policy priority, the White House said. India, Australia, and Japan had all been “directly challenged by China and the Quad meeting was intended to work on “a different vision for the future” in the region, it said. 

The US is looking to strengthen ties with key allies in Asia, as China takes an increasingly assertive foreign policy approach in the Indo-Pacific region and around the world. 

In Friday's meeting, the Quad nations also finalised a landmark initiative under which huge investments will be made in India to create additional production capacities to roll out a billion Coronavirus vaccine doses by 2022 for exports to the Indo-Pacific region, seen as a significant step to counter China's expanding vaccine diplomacy.