Quad setting itself up as core of divisive, disruptive 'Asian NATO': China Daily editorial

The Quad Foreign Ministers' Meeting held in New Delhi on Friday followed hard on the heels of the G20 Foreign Ministers' Meeting in the same city.

Knowing that a small closed-door colloguing would be done after their big party dispersed, the rest of the G20 members should have been aware beforehand that their meeting was only a warm-up for the real guests of New Delhi.

A hanger-on of the United States, a partner with Russia and a neighbor with China, India, after contributing the observation "global governance has failed" in the G20 meeting, is doing a poor job in balancing its relations with the three.

The host did little to prevent the US from downgrading the G20 meeting into a Russia-bashing farce, and the joint statement issued after the Quad gathering was full of veiled attacks on China.

Indeed, the Quad meeting shows that a NATO- style gang is being formed in the Asia-Pacific with the four as a geopolitical tool of Washington, a means-to-end for Japan, hedging-its-bets for a speculative India and an OK-I-am-in Australia, which doesn't want to be left out of anything led by the US.

In the joint statement, the bloc went to great lengths to sugarcoat its spearhead targeting China, by highlighting humanitarian aid as a key part of its agenda, as if the endless humanitarian crises the US has brought to the region and beyond after World War II are just tuition fees locals paid for their required lessons in US-style democracy.

Not only is the Quad trying to expand its scope from security to almost all areas of an international body — just to gain more handles to drive a wedge between China and regional countries — it is also attempting to be the setter of the laws, rules, orders and values in the region.

By saying in a panel discussion that as long as China abides by the rules of international institutions, standards and laws there would be no conflicts between China and the Quad, the only time China was mentioned, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi just showed how fast Tokyo, as a let-me-do-the-dirty-work servant in the gang, has learned the US' tricks. Washington likes to try and claim the moral high ground so it can dangle a plumb bob into the yard of other countries to measure the integrity of their actions.

The Japanese foreign minister also stated that the four countries were in tune, comparing them to a classical musical quartet, The Beatles.

He should perhaps be reminded that the four members of that group outgrew each other and they disbanded acrimoniously.