BIDEN CONTINUES CONFLICT WITH CHINA THROUGH THE QUAD
By Vijay Prashad, Asia Times.
March 19, 2021 | EDUCATE!
Above photo: US President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken
(right) participate in a virtual meeting with leaders of Quadrilateral
Security Dialogue countries March 12, 2021, at the State Dining Room of the
White House in Washington. Alex Wong / Getty Images via AFP.
The Real Purpose Of The Quad Is Not To Advance Solutions To The Great
Challenges Of Our Time, But To Slow Chinas Technological Progress.
On March 12, the heads of government of four countries, Australian Prime
Minister Scott Morrison, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Japanese Prime
Minister Yoshihide Suga, and US President Joe Biden, met for a virtual
meeting of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, better known as the Quad.
Modis opening remarks illustrate the emptiness of the public agenda; he
called the Quad a force for global good with no details beyond a list of
areas of collaboration (vaccines, climate change and emerging
technologies). There was no direct mention of China during the meeting.
In the details relating to the launching of an ambitious new joint
partnership that is going to boost vaccine manufacturing, a more disturbing
agenda reveals itself: The vaccines are meant for Southeast Asia, which is a
core area of US contest against China, and the emerging technologies
refers to the US desire to substitute products from its own high-tech firms
and supplant the attractiveness of the Chinese high-tech industry.
The goal of the Quad is to intensify the military and economic pressure
against China.
The Quad was created in the aftermath of the tsunami of 2004 and then
deepened by US president Barack Obama as central to his pivot to Asia. But
it did not take off until the US administration of Donald Trump began to
rely on this grouping to tighten pressure on China.
It is for that reason that in late 2020, Trump gave the heads of government
of Australia (Morrison), Japan (Shinzo Abe, the former prime minister of the
country) and India (Modi) the highest US military decoration, the Legion of
Merit. These three partners are key players in the US governments pressure
campaign against China.
US Primacy In The Region
In early January this year, the US government declassified a 2018 document
prepared for the Trump administration. This document is called US Strategic
Framework for the Indo-Pacific. The text clearly states that the US
objective in Asia is to maintain US primacy in the region.
The idea of primacy has a long history in US foreign policy, going back to
the early days after World War II. The US government, in a series of
documents, stated that it would seek to be the leading power in the world,
and it would shape the creation of global institutions to benefit the United
States above all else. This is the meaning of the word primacy.
The drafters of the 2018 policy from the US National Security Council noted
that the threat from China was not from its military. Rather, the United
States worried about Chinese developments in cutting-edge technologies,
including artificial intelligence and bio-genetics.
The US governments objective, according to the document, was to maintain
American industrys innovation edge vis-à-vis China, which does not mean
only to enhance US industry, but it also means to prevent China from getting
access to technology and finance.
The war in the Pacific promoted by the US is not irrational. As this
document further points out, Loss of US pre-eminence in the Indo-Pacific
would weaken our ability to achieve US interests globally.
President Joe Bidens administration, which has inherited this document,
will not set it aside.
All signs show that Biden will continue to push the general line that the US
must undermine Chinese scientific and technological development; this goal
will be achieved not by the encouragement of US industry but by military
threats and by the attempted use of US alliances to exclude Chinese firms
from doing business in other countries.
At the Quad discussions, the four governments formed a Critical and Emerging
Technology Working Group. The point of this group is for the four countries
to collaborate on telecommunications and on tech standards.
This working group is tasked with convening dialogues on critical
technology supply chains, which is a direct reference to the attempt to
shut out China from any technology or raw materials that would have dual
civilian and military usage. It has also been set up to encourage
cooperation on telecommunications deployment, diversification of equipment
suppliers, and future telecommunications.
The use of the word diversification is a direct reference to the US
attempt to prevent Chinese firms such as Huawei and ZTE from supplanting
Western telecommunications companies, which have less sophisticated 5G
(fifth-generation) tools that are also far too expensive.
Be Prepared To Fight
Behind all this rhetoric on vaccines, climate change and technology lies an
even uglier story. On March 9, Admiral Philip Davidson, who heads the US
Navys Indo-Pacific Command, appeared before the Senate Armed Services
Committee. His statement before the committee was based on a report on the
Indo-Pacific Commands Pacific Deterrence Initiative.
That report asked the US Congress to double its outlay to $4.68 billion for
2022 ($22.69 billion for 2023 to 2027). Admiral Davidson said this money was
essential because the US absolutely must be prepared to fight and win
should competition turn into conflict. He further said that the trade war
could easily accelerate into a hot war sooner than 2050.
A week before Davidson made these remarks, US Secretary of State Antony
Blinken gave a wide-ranging speech about the Biden administrations
priorities. He listed the names of several countries that present the US
with serious challenges, including Russia, Iran, North Korea.
But the challenge posed by China is different, he said.
China is the only country with the economic, diplomatic, military and
technological power to seriously challenge the stable and open international
system, Blinken said, referring to the world order set up to the advantage
of the North Atlantic countries.
He was very explicit about who benefits from this system, saying that the
systems rules and values make the world work the way we want it to,
because it ultimately serves the interests and reflects the values of the
American people.
China threatens this, Blinken said, so the US must engage China from a
position of strength. This is the real purpose of the Quad, not to advance
solutions to the great challenges of our time (the pandemic, climate change,
war, hunger), but to pressure China to cease its technological advance. If
China does not surrender, the US with the Quad in tow is prepared to go
to war.
This article was produced by Globetrotter, which provided it to Asia Times.
Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor and journalist. He is a writing
fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter. He is the chief editor of
LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social
Research. He is a senior non-resident fellow at Chongyang Institute for
Financial Studies, Renmin University of China. He has written more than 20
books, including The Darker Nations and The Poorer Nations. His latest book
is Washington Bullets, with an introduction by Evo Morales Ayma.
