36 Asia The EconomistNovember 21st 2020
2Banyan Quad stretches
W
hen america, Australia, India and
Japan met in 2007 for a “quadrilat-
eral dialogue” on security matters, many
bet the new grouping would fizzle, de-
spite acquiring the much snappier title
of “the Quad”. Once non-aligned India,
still suspicious of anything that smacked
of an alliance, was non-committal, but in
the end it was Australia, discomfited by
China’s prickly reaction, that was the
first to break ranks. What has changed,
says Kevin Rudd, a former prime min-
ister of Australia, is that President Xi
Jinping has since “fundamentally altered
the landscape” by projecting Chinese
power across Asia and the Pacific.
And so, since 2017, the Quad is back.
All four members have seen their rela-
tionship with China deteriorate. Chinese
incursions around islands that Japan
controls but that China claims in the East
China Sea have grown ever more fre-
quent and forceful. Australia faces Chi-
nese restrictions on all manner of ex-
ports, from punchy Barossa Shirazes to
coking coal, following its call for an
independent inquiry into the origins of
the coronavirus pandemic. Indian and
Chinese troops have been locked in a
high-altitude border stand-off since the
spring, resulting in the first fatal clashes
in 45 years.
Last month, in Tokyo, foreign min-
isters from the Quad met for the second
time. The public statements are anodyne.
Who could object to a “free, open,
prosperous, rules-based and inclusive
Indo-Pacific”? Behind the bromides,
though, the spectre of China and its
growing muscle is obvious.
Defence ties are strengthening fast
among the four countries. This week
their navies came together for the second
phase of India’s annual “Malabar” exer-
cises—Australia’s after a 13-year absence.In principle, the exercises have nothing to
do with the Quad. In practice, they mark
growing naval priorities among the four.
Submarine-hunting drills were promi-
nent. Chinese subs are extending their
reach into the Indian Ocean.
Malabar is just the start. America and
India have signed agreements on logistical
support, encrypted communications and
the exchange of geospatial intelligence,
such as secret maps. America, Australia
and Japan are all preparing to operate
America’s new f-35 fighter jet, allowing
better integration among their forces. On
November 17th Scott Morrison, Australia’s
prime minister, agreed to a defence pact
with his Japanese counterpart, Suga Yoshi-
hide, facilitating joint operations. Even
India is “veering towards some sort of an
alliance relationship” with the Quad coun-
tries, says Gurpreet Khurana, an Indian
naval officer and think-tanker.
The Quad does not convince everyone.
Nick Bisley of La Trobe University in Mel-
bourne says the emphasis on a “free and
open Indo-Pacific” papers over big differ-
ences between the two halves of that vastregion. In the western Pacific, China is
challenging the longtime hegemon, the
United States. In the Indian Ocean, the
problem is not strong states but weak
ones. Other critics say the Quad is too
exclusive a club.
The Quad’s defenders retort that it
embodies the grammar of modern diplo-
macy. It is a compact bloc, rather than a
sprawling multilateral organisation. Yet
it is capable of broadening its agenda,
from disaster relief to cyber-security to
ensuring supply chains for critical min-
erals. And it is suitably elastic, for in-
stance embracing New Zealand, South
Korea and Vietnam during the early
weeks of the pandemic to discuss eco-
nomic recovery. Advisers to President-
elect Joe Biden have suggested that his
administration will emphasise the for-
mation of flexible coalitions of the will-
ing on different issues, including push-
ing back against China. That fits with the
Quad’s catholic interests.
Tanvi Madan of the Brookings In-
stitution in Washington predicts that, in
security terms, the Quad countries will
do “a lot of the heavy lifting in Asia”. But
even Mr Rudd, a supporter of the Quad,
warns that anyone who thinks that these
powers can ever be coequals to America
“has got rocks in their head”. This week
America’s navy secretary, Kenneth
Braithwaite, called for a new American
fleet based in the Indian Ocean, akin to
the Seventh Fleet in Japan.
And China? At times, it claims that all
the talk of a free and open Indo-Pacific is,
as its foreign minister, Wang Yi, once put
it, so much ocean spume. But if that is off
the mark, so too is the claim of an Asian
nato-in-the-making. Instead, in the
region’s turbulent seas, the Quad, once
adrift, is now shaping an increasingly
confident course.A four-country Indo-Pacific grouping is beginning to gain some heftrights at the centre and treat abortion as the
medical procedure that it is.” She worries
that the “socio-economic reasons” for
which abortions are permitted after 14
weeks are too vaguely defined, and that the
counselling requirement, the 24 hours of
“thinking time” and doctors’ right to refuse
to perform the procedure if they have per-
sonal qualms will provide scope for oppo-
nents of abortion to restrict access.
That is precisely what they are trying to
do. “The point is to balance the woman’s
right to choose with the fetus’s right to live
and to create an environment where wom-en will feel safe in their choice to have the
baby rather than an abortion,” says Jeong
Eun-yi, a 27-year-old activist who says she
took up the cause after seeing a plastic
model of a ten-week-old fetus. She would
prefer to retain the old law, but says the bill
has some potentially helpful features. “The
mandatory counselling session shouldn’t
be neutral, but push women to have the
baby,” she says, for instance by making
women listen to the fetus’s heartbeat or
making them watch videos of abortions.
To feminists, the fact that such mea-
sures may be possible suggests that thegovernment is pandering to conservatives.
“They have to focus more on the right to
choose,” says Kim Ye-eun, a 25-year-old
student and activist. “Keeping all these an-
cient provisions is a bad sign that they’re
not taking women’s rights seriously.”
Ms Kwon, for her part, is concerned by
the conservative backlash the bill has
prompted. She worries that it may revive
the authorities’ appetite to enforce whatev-
er restrictions remain in law. But she is glad
that the debate has at least made women
less ashamed to discuss their experience
with abortion. 7