Quad makes it clear to China it’s much more than ‘sea foam’

The latest Quad summit took place last Saturday in Wilmington, Delaware – the hometown of US President Joe Biden. The leaders of the United States, Australia, India and Japan gathered for a sixth time since 2021 and capped their meeting with a detailed, expansive statement of more than 5,000 words.

The agreements reached ranged from matters related to the Indo-Pacific and maritime domain awareness, to joint port development, cybersecurity and improving interoperability among coastguards. Extending pandemic public health cooperation and seeking a cure for cervical cancer were also included in the summit.

The subtext was to reiterate a point made in every such meeting of the grouping: the Quad is not an “Asian Nato” and its activities are not aimed at any specific nation.

China remains the invisible elephant in the room, often alluded to but not explicitly mentioned by name. It is instructive that the only references to “China” in the lengthy joint statement were by way of the East and South China Seas.

However, the most substantive takeaway from the summit came from an unintended moment. In an audio feed not meant for public consumption, Biden was overheard telling the other leaders that President Xi Jinping was “looking to buy himself some diplomatic space, in my view, to aggressively pursue China’s interest”. He added that China “continues to behave aggressively, testing us all across the region” on several fronts, “including on economic and technology issues”.