For the fifth Quad Leaders ‘ Summit, US President Joe Biden hosted for the last moment his peers from Japan, Australia, and India in Manila this year.
The US head focused on institutionalizing participation and the alleged threats posed by China in remarks made by Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Japan’s Prime Minister Kishida Fumio, and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his home state of Delaware.
” China continues to behave violently, testing us all across the place, and it’s true in the South China Sea, the East China Sea, South China, South Asia and the Taiwan Straits”, Biden told his brother Quad officials.  ,
” At least from our perspective, we believe Xi Jinping is looking to focus on domestic economic problems and minimize the volatility in China diplomatic ties, and he’s also looking to buy himself some diplomatic place, in my view, to forcefully pursue China’s attention”, Biden said during the high-level meet in a hot-mic time.
Although more measured in their joint statement, the four strong political leaders announced a series of innovative initiatives with a growing emphasis on quality system growth, security, semiconductors and, most crucially, coastal security.
In particular, they announced the launch of mutual coast guard procedures for 2025 regardless of who wins the White House following the November election, and made a promise to improve military logistics cooperation by expanding the previous Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness.
Beijing was quick to criticize and even denounce aspects of the meeting, despite Quad leaders ‘ attempts to portray the event as a more comprehensive and constructive gathering. The grouping was too “loose” and informal to have any impact on the global and regional balance of power, according to the state-backed Global Times.
Chinese experts who claimed the Quad was inciting “bloc confrontation” and adopting a Cold War-style mindset at the expense of regional security in Asia were also featured in the same nationalist newspaper.
In a press conference earlier this year, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian was reported as accusing the four partner nations of “scaremongering, inciting antagonism and confrontation, and holding back other countries’ development”.
China’s growing interest in maritime security and its increasingly harsh criticism of the Asian power’s actions in neighboring waters seem to have been particularly piqued by Quad’s growing focus on maritime security.
The leaders of the US, Japan, Australia, and India” serious concern about the situation in the East and South China Seas,” according to a thinly veiled criticism of Beijing.
The risky “new normal” of constant clashes and near-clashes between Manila and Beijing in the South China Sea in recent months raises concerns for the US and its allies especially.
India has become more active in regional maritime disputes by publicly supporting and arming the Philippines with advanced weapons, including its potent supersonic BrahMos missiles, despite not being a claimant state or a US ally.
Indian officials have occasionally used the phrase” West Philippine Sea” to describe Manila’s claims in the disputed South China Sea waters.
In the East China Sea, Japan is directly involved in maritime disputes with China over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. In addition to expanding its security cooperation with Manila, Tokyo recently signed a Reciprocal Access Agreement (RAA ), which places a greater emphasis on emergencies in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea.
It has close security cooperation with both Japan and the Philippines under a Status of Forces Agreement and is an Australian ally of the US. In recent quadrilateral naval patrols with the Philippines and the US in the South China Sea, both Japan and Australia have participated.
However, Washington, which has a Mutual Defense Treaty ( MDT ) with the Philippines and is concerned about the escalated situation, which many fear could soon put to the test against China.
The US Indo-Pacific Command ( INDOPACOM) provided, in a first, direct assistance in joint resupply missions to hotly disputed features like the Second Thomas Shoal, which is a de facto Philippine military base, following numerous near-clashes and direct collisions between Chinese and Filipino maritime forces in recent months.
The Philippines and China were successful in reducing tensions over the Second Thomas and Sabina shoals following several rounds of bilateral negotiations, including the recently concluded Bilateral Consultation Mechanism high-level meeting in Beijing.
Upon closer examination, however, there is every indication that the South China Sea disputes have entered an unstable and dangerous “new normal”.
Tensions have resumed over the Second Thomas Shoal in recent days following weeks of relative calm and no significant incidents involving Chinese and Philippine maritime forces.
According to Philippine authorities, between September 17-23, China deployed as many as 251 vessels, representing a new milestone in China’s “gray zone” swarming tactics in the disputed maritime area.
” This time, this is the biggest increase we’ve seen”, Rear Admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad, the Philippine Navy spokesperson for the South China Sea, told reporters this week.
According to him, “if we notice, the total number of maritime militia vessels in the entire South China Sea could be between 350 and 400.” He also warned of a dangerous increase in China’s presence across disputed waters at the expense of smaller claimant states.
China has largely adhered to its non-lethal gray zone tactics, including frequent ramming and water cannoning of smaller Philippine vessels. Under the mutual defense treaty between the two countries, any “armed attack” against Philippine troops or vessels would automatically lead to American military intervention.
China has, however, successfully used its enormous fleet, which is currently the largest on earth, to determine the speed and coordinates of maritime conflict across the South China Sea.
From Beijing’s perspective, its true rivals are not smaller claimant states such as the Philippines, which has a modernizing yet still limited fleet of warships, but rather the US and the broader Quad.
China believes it is facing nothing less than a Washington-orchestrated” containment” strategy in tandem with a network of regional treaty allies and strategic partners, most notably India.
For Chinese analysts, the Quad is playing a “detrimental role of fomenting confrontation and inciting geopolitical tensions in]the ] Asia-Pacific”.
Ding Duo, deputy director of the Institute of Maritime Law and Policy at the National Institute for South China Sea Studies, stated to the Global Times that “targeting China” is done at a strategic level as well as tactical arrangements and specific plans.
According to Li Haidong, a professor at the China Foreign Affairs University, the Quad is” US-led and serves as a strategic tool in its competition with China at both regional and global levels.”
Even senior Chinese officials are starting to criticize the Quad with similarly harsh words, reflecting growing concerns in Beijing over the formation of a new Cold War with the West.
” Quad keeps chanting the slogan of a free and open Indo-Pacific, and all the while, it has been scaremongering, inciting antagonism and confrontation, and holding back other countries’ development”, underscoring Beijing’s threat perceptions towards the quadrilateral grouping.
“]The Quad ] runs counter to the overwhelming trend of pursuing peace, development, cooperation, and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific and will by no means gain any support”, Chinese spokesperson Lin said at a press conference earlier this year. China “firmly opposes the bloc confrontation they incite in the name of “anti-coercion,” and the enforcing of house rules in the name of maintaining order.
Follow Richard Javad Heydarian on X at @Richeydarian