Assertive China brought Quad members together: Former advisor to Shinzo Abe

A confident China is “a very dangerous presence” and has brought members of Quad together, a foreign policy expert from Japan said Saturday, noting that the United States and China will compete in a variety of areas such as semiconductors, artificial intelligence and space exploration alongside exploration military technologies.

At the opening event of the QUAD Global Policy Insights forum, Tomohiko Taniguchi, special advisor to former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, said that China has given up its “inconspicuous” stance. The event took place virtually.

Taniguchi said Washington has become aware of building “stronger bridges between and between” the US, Japan, India and Australia, the four countries that make up the Quad (Quadrilateral Security Dialogue).

“Going forward, 2049 will be the most important year for China for an obvious reason, as it will mark the centenary of the founding of a new China – the People’s Republic of China,” he said.

Taniguchi said China wants to overtake the US as the world’s leading power and build a more powerful military arsenal.

“We have a time window between 2021 and 2049 – almost a generation. ‘Assertive China is very dangerous’ and I think Chinese leaders are determined to change as much as possible the United States in terms of its economic size and along the way, China is keen to build a more powerful military arsenal in the world ” , he said.

“Today the United States and China will compete on a variety of different fronts, from semiconductors to artificial intelligence to space exploration. What ever. Let alone military technologies, ”he added.

Taniguchi said in his keynote speech that the US turned to China for help in 2001 after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in New York.

“When China came out of its cocoon and first hosted one of the multilateral meetings in Shanghai for APEC, China then put the inconspicuous pose aside and as time went on, the Indians and Japanese realized that a confident China is a very dangerous presence . ” . This confident China has brought us all together, “he said.

He said the Trump administration used to be and the Biden administration now focused on the Indo-Pacific.

“The United States has realized, perhaps belatedly, that it cannot make a difference on its own. Therefore, both the Trump administration and the Biden administration have chosen to focus on the Indo-Pacific region,” he said.

“It’s not a landscape, it’s a seascape. We are facing a huge strip of ocean and, as Shinzo Abe spoke about 2007 in front of the central hall of the Indian Parliament, this is the confluence of the two oceans – the Indian and the Pacific. My number two argument is that the United States has become aware that it should build more robust bridges between and between these four nations – the United States, Japan, India and Australia, ”he added.

Taniguchi said former Chinese communist leader Deng Xiaoping argued that China should hold back, but that is over and a confident China has emerged.

“It is of course the emergence of a confident China. A confident China is no longer the China that Deng Xiaoping famously argued (China) should be inconspicuous. It’s gone.”

He said Quad members also changed their minds, which led to the formation of the group.

Taniguchi said that “the change that has taken place in India has been one of the catalysts to make quad a reality,” adding that Japan’s internal development, the change in attitudes in the United States, and China’s rise also fueled the formation of quad to have.

The QUAD Forum is an initiative of Global Policy Insights, a centrist political institute that aims to promote dialogue and understanding around the Quad grouping of nations consisting of the United States, India, Japan and Australia.

The first summit of Heads of State or Government of the Quadrilateral Framework took place practically in March of this year.

In their joint declaration, the Heads of State and Government expressed their commitment to promote a free, open, rules-based order enshrined in international law to promote security, prosperity and threats both in the Indo-Pacific and beyond to encounter.

The leaders said they support the rule of law, freedom of navigation and overflights, peaceful settlement of disputes, democratic values ​​and territorial integrity.

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