The Quad’s Soft Development and Implications for ASEAN’s Centrality
Keywords:
Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, Quad, Institutionalization, Soft development, ASEANAbstract
Quadrilateral Security Dialogue is a cooperation framework associated with the Indo-Pacific strategy, which has been strongly promoted by the US since 2017. In the tense space of US-China competition, the Quad is often thought of as a counterbalancing mechanism to contain China and its area of activity is mainly security issues. However, this article argues that the development of the quadrilateral dialogue mechanism is not one-sided on sensitive and rigid security issues, on the contrary, the four members – which include the US, India, Japan and Australia - have softened Quad's activities in a variety of fields. This trend of development stems mainly from the different views of the member countries in responding to China's unilateral actions, which are motivated by the intertwined economic interests of the great powers with China as well as their foreign tradition in the region. After clarifying the flexible activities of the Quad, this article proves that the existence and development of the Quad doesn’t reduce centrality of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, it even becomes an open space for ASEAN to play that role.
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