The defence chiefs of the United States, Japan, Australia and the Philippines have announced plans to hold more naval exercises as they seek to increase cooperation against China.
The officials met at the US Marine Corps base Camp H.M. Smith in Hawaii for a series of bilateral and joint talks.
The meeting is part of US efforts to increase cooperation among its allies to counter Beijing’s influence in the region.
The quadrilateral talks come less than a year after the first quadrilateral meeting between the countries’ defence chiefs on the sidelines of the Asian security forum known as the Shangri-La Dialogue.
As tensions rise in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea, where the four countries’ militaries conducted their first joint patrols in April, the countries are strengthening defence ties by focusing on maritime cooperation. This week, the US and the Philippines conducted live-fire exercises in the disputed waters, while four Chinese ships fired water cannon at a Philippine vessel for violating territorial waters.
US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, who hosted the meeting, said at the joint press conference that the four countries wanted to “conduct more naval exercises and activities” to improve the interoperability of their forces.
Austin criticised China’s recent actions as “irresponsible behaviour” that “flouts international law” and recalled the mutual defence treaty with the Philippines: “I can only say that you have heard me and the President say many times that our commitment to the treaty is unwavering.”
Similarly, Philippine Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. called the discussion of hypothetical scenarios “unproductive”. He said the quadrilateral meeting was about sending a common message in the face of a “unilateral declaration by a single actor”.
Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles said his counterparts discussed the “increased tempo” of defence exercises in the face of global challenges to the “rules-based order”.
Japanese Defence Minister Minoru Kihara said the Mutual Access Agreement (RAA) negotiated with the Philippines will strengthen bilateral relations and help advance maritime cooperation among the four countries.
“We are united in strongly opposing any attempt to unilaterally change the status quo in the South China Sea through the use of force or any activity that would raise tensions in the region,” he said.
The bilateral meeting between Kihara and Austin followed a summit between US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April. The two sides also announced plans to hold a “2+2” meeting between their leaders and senior defence officials.
The defence ministers of the US, Japan and Australia also held their 13th trilateral defence ministers’ meeting and signed an agreement on defence science and technology cooperation.
Containment strategy
Beijing believes that Washington, through its allies in the region, is pursuing a strategy of containment of China and raising tensions in the Asia-Pacific.
In a speech last year, Chinese President Xi Jinping described the United States as “the power behind the containment, encirclement and suppression” of China. The Biden administration denies this.
Financial Times columnist Edward Luce, who was also a speechwriter for US Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers during the Clinton administration, had previously taken up this containment debate.
Luce stated that the US policy of containment of China is now very obvious as follows: “The original idea of containment, set out in George Kennan’s 1947 Foreign Affairs article, was more modest than the undeclared containment that is now US policy.”
“Kennan’s advice was twofold: Stop the expansion of the Soviet empire; and promote Western democracy,” Luce wrote, describing the US approach to China today as “a higher level of containment”.
