Month: October 2020

How China Plans to Further its Technology Ambitions – A Snapshot from Semiconductor Industry

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Megha Pardhi

       Source: Marketwatch.com

Even as scientists call for a Marshall Plan to preserve US dominance in computing power, its technology war might have turbocharged China’s ambitions instead of scuttling them. The Communist Party has responded to America’s ‘decoupling’ strategy with a clarion call for self-reliance while using post-COVID19 recovery efforts to galvanize its entrepreneurs, researchers and even retail investors. Recent developments in China’s semiconductor industry indicate that progress there might serve as a playbook in the future for other segments of the technology world.

Semiconductors form the backbone of high technology used to make integrated circuits (IC) (chips) for use in electronic gadgets ranging from digital clocks to avionics. The current crop of chip industry leaders hail from US, Europe, Taiwan, and South Korea. China’s ambitions to dominate this industry are not a secret but despite a plethora of State-led policy measures such as special funds, tax incentives and even alleged espionage, Chinese companies are nowhere close to their foreign peers.

Focused support for the semiconductor industry can be traced back to 2014 when China released the National Semiconductor Industry Development Guidelines and set up the China National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund. This 200 billion-yuan (US$29.08 billion) fund aims to back the research and innovation in the semiconductor industry. Moreover, the semiconductor industry in one of the ten sectors prioritized under ‘Made in China 2025′ initiative.

A new policy introduced by the State Council in August 2020 exempts corporate income tax on enterprises based on specified criteria. For example, integrated circuit (IC) projects and enterprises that have operated for more than 15 years will be exempted from corporate income tax for up to 10 years if they employ the 28-nanometre processor or more advanced nodes, while projects from 65nm to 28nm will get five years tax-free and qualify for a 50 per cent discount on the corporate rate for the subsequent five years. The ‘thousand talents program’ of China aims to attract Chinese diaspora in high technology areas, including AI and semiconductors. According to a study by MacroPolo, China still lags significantly behind the US in terms of expertise in AI. While 29 per cent of global AI researchers hail from China, only 11 percent of them work in China. On the other hand, 59 per cent of AI researchers work in the US. With the ‘thousand talents program’ and other similar initiatives, China aims to bridge this gap. Despite setbacks due to COVID19 and trade war with the US, China has persisted with its efforts to develop chip manufacturing capabilities. In September 2020, China included the third-generation semiconductor industry into China’s upcoming  14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25). The details of this policy are still unknown and likely to be available after October 2020.

In addition to State agencies, the Chinese private sector has also played a crucial role in furthering the chip self-sufficiency ambitions of China. First, the private sector has been vital in acquiring key strategic semiconductor technologies and companies. For example, a recent Reuters report unearthed an extraordinarily complex series of transactions which landed Microprocessor without Interlocked Pipelined Stages (MIPS), a leading US chip technology, in the portfolio of China registered CIP United. Second, the private sector in China is also engaged in research and development of advanced semiconductor technologies. Huawei’s fabless IC company Hisilicon is currently one of the most advanced IC companies in China. Chinese tech giants like Alibaba and Baidu also have their semiconductor chips design companies. Moreover, numerous startups in China focus on semiconductors. Some of the top startups in China are CXMT, Senscomm, Yangtze Memory Technologies, ProPlus Electronics, Spectrum Materials, and ASR Microelectronics.

The culmination of all these efforts is that China’s semiconductor industry is slowly inching forward despite challenges posed by trade war and COVID19. Self-sufficiency in funding is perhaps easiest to achieve. Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), a Chinese foundry with government stakes, was recently listed  on Shanghai STAR stock exchange after delisting in the US. The listing received fast-track approval within a record 19 days and SMIC shares gained 245% on the first day of listing. This offering made STAR the exchange with the second-most funds raised in the world in 2020, behind Nasdaq and ahead of Hong Kong.

Several challenges plague China’s ambitions to become self-sufficient in semiconductor design and manufacturing. First, the COVID19 has affected several industries including semiconductor manufacturing. The semiconductor chip manufacturing industry is one of the truly global industries with the operations spread out across several locations. The COVID19 situation has affected the global supply chains and in turn, the semiconductor industry in China. Despite the COVID19, market sentiment in China’s semiconductor manufacturing remained positive. Second, the poor planning can likely be an obstruction in achieving the Chinese dreams of self-sufficiency in manufacturing. For example, reports have emerged of a US$20 billion government-backed state-of-the-art semiconductor manufacturing plant in Wuhan being stalled due to poor planning and lack of funding. Another US$3 billion government-backed chip plant owned by Tacoma Nanjing Semiconductor Technology was reported for going bankrupt. Third, the semiconductor industry in China is generations behind the top manufacturers in the field. SMIC has just started mass production of 14nm 1st generation FinFET technology ICs while world’s largest semiconductor foundry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) is moving towards manufacturing 5nm technology. Moreover, as per the SCMP China Internet Report 2020, China still lacks 20 key technical materials and 30 advanced technology processes. China plans to overcome this technological gap by concentrating on ‘AI chips’. AI chips are specialized chips optimized for Artificial Intelligence computations. The limitations of chip design, as postulated by Moore’s law, are making it difficult for chip makers to design and manufacture cost-effective chips. AI chips can be manufactured using relatively older technology and are comparable in terms of performance. AI chips have low barriers to entry as compared to the traditional chips. Hence, it is easier for startups to enter the chip industry. Third, the US-China Trade War has severely hampered China’s plans. However, Chinese government and private industry are determined to counter the loss due to this trade war. For example, gauging the difficulties caused due to the US-China Trade War, China’s tech veterans have launched a fund to support the Chinese tech companies sanctioned by the US.

These technological and political obstacles will at most delay China’s goals but are unlikely to halt them.  If recent trends in China’s semiconductor industry gain momentum, they are likely to form part of a template of the high-tech industry seeking self-sufficiency.

Harnessing the untapped potential: India-Taiwan cooperation in education

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Kannan R Nair, Former Research Intern, ICS

                                                Source: TaiwanToday

Recent border tensions between India and China after the Galwan valley skirmishes has led to heated debates on the future of cooperation between the emerging markets in Asia. Amongst emerging bilateral deficiencies beyond the strategic, the partnership in higher education is being contested. The Confucius Institutes, which teaches Mandarin and acts as a primal agent of Chinese soft power in India is now under scrutiny after the new low in Beijing-New Delhi relations. These developments are reflected in the New Education Policy (NEP) released by the Government of India by taking down Mandarin from the list of foreign languages. Contextualising this, in order to broaden the scope of student enthusiasm to study China better, Taiwan could act as the best possible alternative.

The primary concern for students opting for higher education in foreign countries is post-study work opportunities, quality infrastructure and decent remuneration. In the case of Taiwan, sustained rapid economic development is reflected in the development of higher education wherewithal. According to QS Asia University Ranking 2020, twenty-seven Taiwanese universities are in the top 300. The Times Higher Education Report shows that Taiwan is one of the top ten places with the most inexpensive fee structure to study at university level. Taiwan becomes a better alternative in terms of cost of living in comparison with other top educational hotspots in Asia like Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong and Japan. 

Education in New Southbound Policy 

In 2016 under the leadership of Tsai Ing-Wen, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won elections against Ma Ying-jeou of Kuomintang (KMT). The New Southbound Policy (NSP) announced in 2016 was the political response of DPP against policy orientations of the KMT towards Mainland China. The NSP was designed to diversify Taipei’s economic, cultural, educational and technological relations to South and Southeast Asia. 

The KMT government led by Ma Ying-jeou in 2010, signed the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) with China, which had a decisive role in intensifying Taiwan’s economic over-reliance with Beijing. This engagement reflected in the expansion of the number of students from Mainland China to Taiwan. There are also reasons which attract Mainland students to study in Taiwan is the opportunity to study Mandarin in traditional Chinese scripts, unlike simplified script in China. The percentage of international students in Taiwan from China rose from 21% in 2011 to 36% in 2016. Over the same period, the students from NSP target countries reduced from 31% to 27%. 

When anti-Beijing Tsai Ing-Wen came into power in 2016, Taiwan witnessed a policy shift that modified the stance of the previous government. Tsai stressed in assorting choices in the realm of higher education beyond China. In the aegis of NSP, Tsai initiated a New Southbound Talent Development Plan in 2016. This plan acted as a platform to conduct high-quality research in Taiwan and encourage interflow of students across the globe. The Ministry of Education allotted 0.4% of the total budget to NSP in 2017. The spending on education in NSP was increased in the immediate year, by an increase of 70% to 0.7%. Even Though NSP showed limited success in advancing political relations with target countries; it paved the way for the omnipresence of a diverse international student community. For the first time in 2017, students from Southeast Asia studying in Taiwan surpassed numbers of mainland Chinese students in Taiwan. 

The ‘Taiwan’ opportunity for India 

Taiwan is leveraging its economic potential to transform it into a ‘Higher Education Hub’. The aim is to diversify Taiwan’s higher education leveraging potential beyond Mainland China. In that, to increase the outreach of NSP across South Asia, India can act as the most reliable partner. For India, balancing China needs multifaceted strategies, and in the soft power realm, Taiwan is the appropriate opportunity. To understand and decipher China in a better way it is necessary to propagate Mandarin learning centres across India. 

However, recent developments question the transparency of Confucius Institutes in India. The institute acted as an official word on Chinese education. It was accused previously in different countries, like the United States, Israel, Australia and Canada charged with espionage and misuse of political influence. In this context, the Taiwan Education Center (TEC) in India gets utmost importance. TECs are institutes funded by the Taiwanese education ministry specialized in teaching Mandarin, Chinese History and Culture and to foster international academic collaboration. Currently, India has eight TECs associated with prestigious institutes like Jawaharlal Nehru University, IIT Bombay and IIT Madras, Jamia Millia Islamia, O.P. Jindal Global University, Amity University, Chitkara University and Sri Ramaswamy Memorial Institute of Science and Technology in Chennai.

It is Kapil Sibal who first went on to take a pro-Taiwan position to invite 10000 mandarin instructors to India for popularising Mandarin education in High Schools across India. The proposal went into no effect considering possible responses from Beijing. Nevertheless, inspecting the vulnerabilities in the current situation, it is time that Indian policymakers replace non-functional Confucius institutes with TECs to promote Chinese language training, Chinese culture and academic exchanges. 

In 2018, the Indian students enrolled in Taiwanese universities were 2398, a sharp hike of 56% as compared to the previous year. Over the last decade, about 300 Indian students have availed scholarships to study in Taiwan. A MoU was signed between Association of Indian Universities and Foundation for International Cooperation in Higher Education of Taiwan in 2010 for mutual recognition of academic degrees. The recognition will enhance more academic exchanges and transactions in higher education. As of 2015-16, among the NSP target countries, only 4% are from India studying in Taiwan. Malaysia tops the list by 52%, second being Indonesia with 15.4 per cent. In total, overseas students studying in Taiwan from NSP target countries, 85% are from Southeast Asia. 

Analyzing the outreach of NSP beyond China, available data shows its evidence only in Southeast Asia. India’s disposition in tapping Taiwan’s potential and policy proposals discerning cooperation in education has shown meagre results. Especially in higher education, India needs to work on narrowing down the information gap to popularize the ‘Taiwan opportunity’ by effectively cooperating with TECs in this regard. New Delhi should also welcome Taiwanese students to study in prestigious institutes across India by providing scholarships. 

The Progression of Chinese Soft Power

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Aadil Sud, Research Intern, ICS

           In politics, soft power has often been described as the ability to be able to persuade or attract other political actors to support your own interests. It shuns the traditional carrot and stick approach, and strives to attract and co-opt, rather than coerce, seeking instead to achieve influence by building networks and making a country naturally attractive to the world. The most popular definition of this concept was given by Joseph Nye, who stated that soft power was “when one country gets other countries to want what it wants”. Over the years, many different aspects of soft power have been talked about. Some of the most common forms of soft power promotion are a country’s global image, political prestige, and cultural capital.

China is a country that has over the past decades invested heavily in its soft power capabilities, often accompanying its hard power strategies with soft power parlance. A good example of this has been China’s ‘historical’ claims to territory in the South China Sea, which they state had been controlled by China even before the rise of modern nation-states, trying to add more legitimacy to their claims. To date, it has also promoted itself heavily in the fields of diplomacy, education, culture, and economics as well, which have resulted in tremendous returns for them.

Soft power was explicitly referenced for the first time at the seventeenth National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 2007, where former president Hu Jintao stated that “The great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation will definitely be accompanied by the thriving of Chinese culture”. Xi Jinping was further quoted as saying in 2014 that “We should increase China’s soft power, give a good Chinese narrative, and better communicate China’s message to the world”.

To this end, China has made efforts to increase its diplomatic power, overtaking the USA to have the largest diplomatic force in the world in 2019. It has also made a concerted effort to promote Chinese culture, focusing on language, art, music, and movies. One of its biggest achievements in this has been the spread of Confucius Institutes around the world. Having criticised Confucius for decades, the CCP has since co-opted interest in pre-modern Chinese culture, recognising that Confucius is one of the more recognisable intellectual minds outside of China, and has avoided negative connotations like those surrounding leaders like Mao. Starting in 2004, China began “establishing non-profit public institutions which aim to promote Chinese language and culture in foreign countries”. As of 2019, there were an estimated 550 institutes around the world. This has been part of the push to spread and increase interest in Chinese language education around the world. Another similar push has also been implemented in countries like Nepal, where China proposed covering the salaries of teachers who teach Mandarin, resulting in many schools making learning the language compulsory.

Another aspect of Chinese soft power, in the current world climate, has been touting the efficiency of its system of governance. Before the pandemic, China united countries behind the leadership of Xi Jinping, attempting to usurp the influence of a rapidly declining America under Donald Trump, which was heading towards further isolationism and walking back from previously agreed trade and climate deals. The most important issues where China has strived to integrate itself and replace the role of the USA includes, but is not limited to the Paris Climate Agreement, negotiating with the Taliban in Afghanistan, as well as with trade issues. It has showcased China under President Xi and the CCP as a conscientious leader, willing to sacrifice its own interests for those needed to combat issues like climate change. Since the advent of the pandemic, there has been a renewed interest in showcasing China’s institutional advantage worldwide. With the failures of liberal democracies around the world to control the spread of the pandemic, and with China effectively quarantining the epicentre of the pandemic, registering only around 80000 cases, China’s governance system has been touted as extremely effective in crisis situations.

This, combined with discourse about how a difference in attitudes between the East and the West influenced the handling of the pandemic, have resulted in a highly politicised soft power tussle, with Trump blaming China for the virus, referring to it as the “Chinese Virus”. Conversely, China has also made efforts to shift the blame onto western countries such as France and the USA and tried to raise international goodwill by donating medical equipment and supplies to many countries in need. Along with this, it has also engaged in pandemic propaganda. For example, China mobilised 5000 medicinal practitioners in support of their response to the virus, and proposed vaccines based on traditional Chinese herbal medicines. According to Prof. Ji Zhe, more than 90% of China’s cured cases had made some or the other use of such herbs, very similar to how certain sections of society in India have touted Ayurveda and immunity boosting as effective ways to combat the pandemic. While the effectiveness of such medicines is a separate issue, it has become highly politicised, as it has been portrayed as Chinese products, pushed forward by the CCP, which had been used to save the Chinese people (and can be used to save others across the world).

Finally, with the projected global recession, China has sought to improve its appeal economically as well. This, for them, would improve chances of governments working with the CCP, as a way to boost their economies in the post-pandemic period. This has been matched with a widespread admiration for the way China has successfully transitioned from a low-income country to a middle-income one very rapidly. The Chinese growth miracle has been one of its biggest successes, and one of its biggest attractions as well. For example, the Barbadian Prime Minister David Thompson has expressed admiration for the Chinese economic model and sought to emulate the way Chinese state-controlled banks guided development, both within China, and abroad. This has, in recent years, been combined with their promotion of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). China’s economic heft has also been used to promote the One China policy, where countries have been offered low-interest loans with the only preconditions being to recognise the PRC as the ‘real’ China, a method that has been immensely successful for them in the past.

However, the CCP’s efforts to promote Chinese soft power have often been met with many obstacles in the past, as well as currently. For many years, China has been seen as an imperialist nation by many of its neighbours, and by others around the world (due to, for example, its territorial tensions in the China Seas and beyond, with Vietnam, Taiwan, Japan, as well as in Southeast Asia), something that has dampened excitement of integrating with the Chinese growth miracle. This has been exacerbated by allegations and concerns of falling into a debt trap over the BRI, which takes on more concern amidst a pandemic-induced recession, decreasing the pull of China as both an economic and political partner for many. Concurrently, China’s recent actions relating to Hong Kong, accusations of human rights abuses in Xinjiang, as well as concerns over similar actions in Tibet have served to reduce trust and raise criticism of the Chinese state. According to Dr. Victoria Tin-Bor-Hui, international opinion of China around the world currently is at its lowest point since 1989, the year of the Tiananmen Square agitations.

As we can see, China’s soft power, as well as its efforts to promote the same, are something many countries around the world can learn from. The CCP has learnt very effectively, that soft power does not only revolve around Nye’s erstwhile definition of it, but also includes aspects that may have come under traditional hard power tactics. However, we again see the importance of good relations with other countries, as despite all their achievements, China is often portrayed as having several black marks against it, that has served to reduce the willingness and interest of many countries to outright ally with it, as opposed to offering them issue-based support – which is the nature of world politics today. However, China’s pull – culturally, economically, politically, as well as technologically cannot be ignored, and has played a large part in how they have managed to secure a preeminent place in world politics, and solidified themselves as a major actor in issues around the world, providing a direct challenge to the US-based hegemony that we see in our world today.

QUAD is the US “Latest Toy” to Thwart China’s Growth. But India Now More Keen to Play Along, say Chinese Experts

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Hemant Adlakha, Honorary Fellow, ICS and Associate Professor, JNU

On 6 October, 2020, the world’s attention was focused on the rare in-person Quad foreign ministers’ meet in Tokyo. But some Chinese commentators were closely watching India’s External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and New Delhi. Why?

                        Pompeo with Jaishankar in Tokyo                        

                        Photo: wionews.com

As was expected, not “Japan’s ‘Trump Whisperer’,” the Foreign Minister Toshitmitsu Motegi, but the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the shots in Tokyo during the Quad second ministerial talks. But some Chinese observers, as also the Chinese Foreign Ministry mandarins, had their eyes and ears set on the Indian EAM Jaishankar and on the outcome of his separate meeting with Pompeo. For as the US presidential election voting day draws closer, Pompeo’s Mission Tokyo was to use the Quadrilateral Dialogue – President Trump’s key to realizing the Indo-Pacific strategy – to remind its allies in the region to step up putting pressure on Beijing, some Chinese commentaries observed days before the curtain went up for the Quad foreign ministers’ talks. “The [Tokyo] meeting is set to be one of the highest-profile diplomatic gatherings for the Trump administration before the US presidential election, where policy toward Beijing has become a major campaign issue,” The Washington Post had stated just before the Quad meeting in Tokyo.

However, some Western strategic and security affairs critics of Trump’s foreign policy have ridiculed the President by saying he has been brandishing the term “Indo Pacific” as the US “latest toy” to checkmate a rapidly rising China. They are also quick in pointing out “Indo Pacific” is the alternative grouping Trump has found to replace his predecessor Obama’s TPP in the Asia Pacific region in which China has been excluded. While not quite subscribing to the views of the critics of “Indo Pacific” strategy, at least one Chinese analyst perceives “Indo Pacific” to be a “brilliant concept but difficult to implement.”

Interestingly, in Beijing’s view, India’s recent change in stance on QUAD from being a “geographical concept” to “good mechanism” in Asia Pacific has provided enough dynamism to the US “Indo Pacific” concept to revive up its China containment policy. Quite in tune with what at least some scholars in China have been telling us, a US commentator recently wrote of both Indo Pacific concept and Quad security dialogue: “QUAD was served up to spice up (the Indo Pacific) alphabet soup, as a new strategy to slow, if not thwart, China’s rise as the predominant economic powerhouse in Asia Pacific.”

For example, Zhang Jie, a senior researcher at the China Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) in Beijing strongly believes the transition from “Asia-Pacific” to “Indo-Pacific” is a prominent feature of Quadrilateral Security Mechanism dialogue. This trend highlights the importance of the Indian Ocean, the increasing connection between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean and the increasing weight of India in the world, Zhang recently observed in his widely read article in Guangming Daily – China’s most influential newspaper among the urban intelligentsia.

This explains, in spite of the fact that Pompeo had told reporters before leaving for Tokyo the outcome of the talks will not be made public until after he gets a nod from the POTUS on his return to Washington, why China’s strategic affairs community was closely watching the Indian EAM Dr. Jaishankar’s tête-à-tête with Pompeo during the QUAD Tokyo Forum. Primarily due to India making a significant shift during past six months from what Prime Minister Modi had asserted at the Shangri La Security Dialogue in 2018 that “Indo-Pacific is not a strategy or a club of limited members” to New Delhi’s reticence today on the militarization of Quad.

Highlighting the fact, an Indian national English language daily, The Hindu in its editorial on the eve of the Tokyo talks cited the country’s powerful Chief of Defense Staff (CDS) – believed to be close to PM Modi – as having stated “India believes the Quad would be a good mechanism to ensure Freedom of Navigation Operations in the Indian Ocean and surrounding oceans including the Indo Pacific.”

“Quad” – Background and Past Trajectory

While a handful of commentators first explained the origin of the US, Japan, India and Australia quadrilateral grouping at the initiative of Prime Minister Abe at the ASEAN Regional Forum in Manila in May 2007, when Abe advocated the “Broader East Asia” or “Greater Asia” concept. They also pointed out the US multilateral security interaction was launched following a series of bilateral and trilateral meetings between and among the present-day Quad four countries. But due to several uncertainties then prevailing both in some of the Quad countries and also in the world, the “Greater Asia” concept along with the US, Japan, India and Australia security grouping – also dubbed by some in Beijing as the “Asian NATO,” failed to see the light of day.

In the words of widely respected Professor Zhang Li of Academy of Ocean of China (AOC), some key factors which led to premature death of the so-called Quad or the Asian NATO were, namely Abe’s sudden resignation on health grounds, the refusal of the then newly elected Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd of the Labour Party to join any multilateral grouping targeting China and the impending global financial crisis. Besides, Zhang Li also attributes full credit to the “alert” Chinese diplomacy in sounding death knell for the quadrilateral security grouping when Rudd visited Beijing soon after he assumed the post of Australian Prime Minister in late 2007 and unilaterally declared withdrawal of Australia from the quadrilateral security dialogue.

From Quad to Quad 2.0 – India a Key Factor since 2006

Irrespective of whatever happened to the fate of Quad 1.0 and contrary to what is generally believed both in India and among strategic affairs community in the US, Japan and Australia, Beijing has been closely monitoring India’s growing importance in quadrilateral security dialogue for over a decade and a half now. According to Professor Cu Caiyun of Institute of Asia Pacific and Global Strategic Research at the Beijing’s prestigious China Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), with the rapid and powerful rise of China since the unfolding of the 21st century, the US, Japan, India and Australia have drawn closer to each other.

“Held together by the outdated Cold War mentality of yesteryears, the four nations have been sticking together under the so-called bogey of common values and have formed groupings such as Democratic Alliance or a quasi-alliance with a singular aim to carry out their China containment design,” Professor Caiyun recently wrote in a widely influential research paper. Interestingly, Caiyun’s paper, entitled “A Rising China and Formation of Four Nation Democratic Alliance comprising of the US, Japan, Australia and India” was not published in the CASS journal, but it appeared in the flagship bimonthly Global Review of the Shanghai Institute of International Studies (SIIS) – both SIIS and GR enjoy a good rapport with the central authorities in Beijing.

Quad 2.0 – “Beggar’s Club” and Empty Rhetoric

Dismissive of President Trump’s initial desperate efforts to revive Quadrilateral Security Mechanism three years ago, scholars in China had called Trump’s “anti-China” move as “a meeting of four poor beggars” in the Indo-Pacific region. Long Kaifeng, a former PLA navy senior officer who now writes syndicated columns on military affairs, points out several inherent contradictions in Quad’s conceptual framework. First, the “negative” premise on which the concept is conceived, that is to treat China as an antithesis or an imaginary enemy. Second, the US alone does not have the wherewithal to carry out its China containment policy. This is because within Quad, it is only the US which thinks it is in its national interest to implement China containment policy. Third, closely linked to the second factor above, it is true that Japan, Australia and India (notwithstanding ongoing border tension between India and China), given their respective economic compulsions, are least willing to or prepared for directly confronting China.

Perhaps aware of what China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Japan’s national broadcaster NHK last week (the NHK reported a possibility that Wang Yi may also visit Tokyo this month): Quad is a “headline-grabbing idea,” Professor Wang Zheng of Dr. Sun Yat-sen University in Canton, unlike most other Chinese analysts, scornfully dismissed the Quad grouping as “empty rhetoric.” With sarcasm in tone, Wang Zheng recently wrote: “Let the four countries first come up with their top leaders’ summit meeting or set up an institutional arrangement.”      

Finally, scholars in China are confident that in the post COVID world, the continuing decline of the United States – both economically and as the world’s dominant power – is inexorable. Hence, Beijing is in no doubt, Washington’s China containment policy is in need of New Wine in a New Bottle. Meanwhile, the Indian EAM Jaishankar’s remarks after the Quad talks in Tokyo that “it’s a matter of satisfaction that Indo-Pacific concept has gained increasingly wider acceptance” might have only further strengthened what the Chinese scholars have maintained all these years. Therefore, Beijing was least amused in what was one of India’s several “independent” TV news channels’ lead headlines hours before the Tokyo talks: “Quad FMs Meet in Tokyo as India Looks to Unite Allies against Aggressive China.” Undeterred, Beijing continues to closely watch which way Quad headwinds will be blowing in the Indian capital!

Originally published as Is QUAD the US “Latest Toy” to Thwart China’s Growth? by Nepal Institute of International Cooperation and Engagement (NIICE), Kathmandu on 6 October, 2020.