‘Indo-Pacific Nato’: China’s Wang Yi slams US-led ‘Quad’ as underlying security risk at Malaysia meeting
- The grouping, which includes Japan, Australia and India, aims to maintain US dominance, China’s senior diplomat told the media in Malaysia
- Wang’s comments, which were not part of his prepared remarks, came in a question and answer session after a meeting with his Malaysian counterpart
The senior Chinese diplomat’s withering assessment of the so-called Quad grouping came as he spoke to the media after meeting with his Malaysian counterpart Hishammuddin Hussein in Kuala Lumpur – the second pit stop in his five-nation Southeast Asian tour this week.
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Hishammuddin said the government was closely monitoring developments as Beijing begins making its vaccines available to the general public from November. Wang said as “Malaysia was a good friend of China”, the Chinese government was standing ready to “pursue detailed consultations and to carry out collaboration on vaccines”.
In a veiled reference to the waterway’s increasing status as a proxy arena for US-China rivalry, Wang said the area “should not be a ground for major power wrestling, teeming with warships.”
Both foreign ministers also highlighted China’s commitment to purchase 1.7 million tonnes of Malaysian palm oil over the next three years. The Southeast Asian country, the world’s second largest palm oil producer and exporter, has been battling anti-palm oil lobbyists in the West in recent years.
A five-page joint statement listed various other issues discussed during Wang’s visit, including the possibility of a travel bubble between the two countries and plans for Hishammuddin to visit Beijing at a “mutually convenient time”.
“In essence, [the Indo-Pacific strategy] aims to build a so-called Indo-Pacific Nato underpinned by the quadrilateral mechanism involving the United States, Japan, India and Australia,” Wang said.
“What it pursues is to trumpet the Cold War mentality and to stir up confrontation among different groups and blocs and to stoke geopolitical competition. What it maintains is the dominance and hegemonic system of the United States.”
“In this sense, this strategy is itself a big underlying security risk. If it is forced forward, it will wind back the clock of history,” he added.
In an interview with Nikkei Asia, US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said he hoped that the grouping would be institutionalised to “build out a true security framework”.
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He described the Quad as the “fabric” that could “counter the challenge that the Chinese Communist Party presents to all of us”, adding that other nations could join the grouping at “an appropriate time”.
In August, Pompeo’s number two, Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun, had cautioned against “loose talk about an Indo-Pacific Nato and so on” in describing the Quad. “I’d just be very careful to not define it solely as an initiative to contain or to defend against China. I don’t think that’s enough,” Biegun said in an interview.
Malaysia’s Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, who is self-isolating at home after coming into contact with a minister who tested positive for Covid-19, said in a press conference late on Tuesday that he held talks with Wang via videoconferencing. He said the government was glad that Malaysia was earmarked as a priority recipient of China’s Covid-19 vaccines.
Kuala Lumpur is also part of the World Health Organisation’s Covax Vaccination Plan, but Muhyiddin said a downside of the multilateral initiative was its requirement for countries “to fork out a large amount of money before we can get a vaccine for our use”.
Ngeow Chow Bing, the director of the Institute of China Studies at the University of Malaya, said that based on the foreign ministers’ statements, their commitment to bilateral cooperation over Covid-19 vaccines was the highlight of Wang’s trip.
“Wang of course feels that the Quad is becoming a security threat to China and has to respond strongly when he is asked about it, but I do not think [the purpose of his visit] was to dissuade Malaysia from joining the Quad,” Ngeow said.
“There has never been any indication Malaysia is interested in the Quad, and Malaysia will not be interested.”