A key plank in the U.S.’s hawkish approach to China is building up partnerships around the Indo-Pacific. Notably this involves the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad, between the U.S., Japan, India and Australia, and the defense and security pact between Australia, the U.K., and the U.S., also known as AUKUS. What this broad picture can miss, though, is that even within these groupings there are notes of reticence that can go underrecognized.
“At the individual level, every Quad member except the U.S. wishes to stay away from hardcore military focussed talks,” Pooja Bhatt, author of “Nine Dash Line: Deciphering the South China Sea Conundrum,” told Domino Theory by email. “This has to do with China being an important economic partner as well as military threat to each of the Quad members as much as others. In other words, Chinese capabilities do act as a deterrent for other countries to overtly accept an anti-China position.”
Here, we briefly take a closer look at the overall positions of Australia, Japan and India, including parts of their internal dialogue that push back against an anti-China approach.
Australia
The U.S. State Department describes Australia as a “vital ally, partner, and friend of the United States.” The U.S. Embassy and Consulates in Australia statement on the relationship notes, “Bilateral defense ties and cooperation are exceptionally close,” with the two having “fought together in every significant conflict since World War I.” In recent years this position has been doubled down on, as the country has firmly chosen Washington over Beijing, a fact underlined by its mirroring of U.S. semiconductor sanctions on China, and reinforced most strongly by the AUKUS pact. Signed in 2021, it aims to supply Australia with nuclear-powered submarines.
To the extent to which it can be reliably measured, public support looks to be behind AUKUS, with 2022 and 2023 polls by the Lowy Institute suggesting around 50% of respondents believed the pact made the country “more safe,” and less than 10% believing it made the country “less safe.” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has embodied this position. In his last visit to the U.S. he said he wanted to “write the next chapter” with the United States, while on his last visit to China he was significantly cooler, saying Australia would “cooperate with China where we can, disagree where we must and engage in our national interest.”
What stray notes of internal criticism that have turned up have come from the top end of politics. On the one hand, former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull said in an interview this month that Australia has “basically abandoned our sovereignty” by choosing to rely on the U.S. for production of submarines. “We are completely dependent on what happens in the United States as to whether we get them now,” he said. On the other hand, former prime minister Paul Keating has criticized the pact as an attempt at maintaining U.S. “hegemony” in East Asia by seeking to contain China. Beneath both criticisms, there is concern about making an “unsustainable bet on continued American primacy in the Pacific,” according to an adept summary by The Financial Times.
Japan
For Japan, the commitments have been substantial. It’s announced plans to raise its defense budget and related spending to 2 percent of GDP. It’s done deals with Australia, offering aid to Southeast Asian countries sparring with China over the South China Sea. It’s a member of the reinvigorated Quad. It’s discussed hosting a NATO office in Tokyo. It’s mirrored the U.S. semiconductor ban on China. Earlier this month Japan’s ruling coalition decided to relax its strict defense export rules to allow the sale of a sixth-generation fighter it is developing with the U.K. and Italy.
As in Australia, public opinion on China appears to broadly align with these positions. One survey from last year found 92% of Japanese respondents had a “not good,” impression of China, up from 87% the previous year, and the second highest figure since 2005. A survey by Japan’s Cabinet Office similarly found 86.7% of respondents felt unfriendly toward China, up 4.9% on the year before. Those who believe Japan-China relations are important to both countries and the Asia-Pacific region fell to a record low of 68.2%. And its youth vote skews heavily toward the conservative Liberal Democratic Party, which suggests this direction of travel is going nowhere.
The relationship is seen by some as splitting very clearly between economic and political “Economically, [the relationship with China is] very managed, and actually, quite positive … there’s a degree of economic interdependence,” Lewis Eves, teaching associate at the University of Sheffield’s Department of Politics and International Relations told Domino Theory via video call. “Politically, it’s very different.” This relates to both historical tensions following on from World War II, but also the fact that China is becoming increasingly dominant in the region in terms of military capacities. “That starts to pose a bit of an existential threat to Japan,” Eves explained.
In terms of translating that position into military commitments, one major tension is over the revision of Article 9 of its constitution, which renounces Japan’s right to war as a means of settling international disputes. Public opinion has shown mixed results on whether this should be changed. Last May, one annual poll for the Asahi Shimbun newspaper found 37% agreed, the second-highest ratio since 2013, with 55% favoring no change. At the same time, another poll from The Yomiuri Shimbun found 51% were in favor of amending Article 9, while 44% were against. A poll by Kyodo News found 53% thought Article 9 should be amended, while 45% were opposed.
For now, Eves characterized Japan’s military positioning as “making sure [it has] the room to defend” but not far beyond the East China Sea, because “It’s not defensive if we have an aircraft carrier operating on the other side of the world.” But this is subject to change. And there is a left-right split over whether it should. On the left, there remains a commitment to demilitarization following on from World War II. On the right, embodied by some within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, there is more of a focus on sovereignty and not wanting to have to rely solely on U.S. security guarantees.
India
India’s commitments to an anti-China strategy have been most limited. It has joined the Quad but is a key force in limiting that grouping’s work on security, and it is also a member of BRICS, a grouping which involves China and is seen as a key counterweight to U.S. power.
“Concerns over China’s negative reactions have often been a factor for non-U.S. Quad members urging restraint on the organization’s activities, particularly in the security realm,” Bates Gill, executive director at the Center for China Analysis, told Domino Theory by email. “At the same time, the members of the Quad and Quad+ have their own reasons to eschew a multilateral defense alliance structure, regardless of what China might think. India in particular is wary of allying closely with the others… .”
Public opinion reflects this positioning. Matching a Pew Research Center poll which found 67% of respondents had an “unfavorable” view of China, another survey last year found 43% of respondents named China as India’s “greatest military threat.” However, in second place was the U.S. on 22%, ahead of Pakistan on 13%.
That wariness aligns with India’s fundamental commitment to multipolarity. It’s determined not to align itself with either China or the U.S., because it believes it can stand on its own. The “remarkably consistent” factor in Indian foreign policy “from the word ‘go’” has been that “[on] issues which are of vital interest to India, those decisions should be taken primarily in the Indian capital itself and not be outsourced to somebody else,” Shyam Saran, former Indian foreign secretary, summarized at a Chatham House forum in December.
That doesn’t mean relations with China are good. Open tension between the two has been normalized since a border standoff in the Himalayas in 2017 and an infamous border clash in 2020, in which at least 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers died. “There has also been a shift away from the rules of engagement [in terms of] the non-use of force along the border,” Chietigj Bajpaee, senior research fellow for Chatham House’s South Asia, Asia-Pacific Programme noted at the December Chatham House forum. But what it does mean is that India is always going to be, at best, a reluctant partner of the U.S.
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