AUKUS and QUAD vs rising power of China

An opinion article of the former Labor Australian Prime Minister, Paul Keating, has been published by mainstream Australian print media:

Morrison is making an enemy of China...and all in the claim of a so-called “changed security environment”. That change is China’s more aggressive international posture – the posture of now, the world’s largest emerging economy. This change in China’s domestic and foreign posture is labelled by Morrison and his government not as the shifting posture of a re-emerging great power, but as “the China threat”. As though China, through its more abrupt and ruder foreign policy, has also presented a military threat in its dealings with Australia. A threat that, in fact, has never been made and that has never materialised. The word “threat” explicitly connotes military aggression or invasion, a threat China has never made against Australia or even implied making.

China understandably is on alert watching the recent development in Washington DC. China has developed very strong relations, in recent times, with the other countries of the Indo-Pacific region – Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Fiji, Papua New Guinea (PNG). China has huge investment projects in Indonesia and PNG. China has strong trade relations with New Zealand, PNG, and Fiji. 

The Prime Minister of Japan, Yoshihide Suga, and the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, did not spend much time with the media in Washington and deliberately did not respond clearly to many questions raised. Japan and India both are Asian countries of the Indo-Pacific region in QUAD.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi looked very nervous during his stay in Washington. He read out a written speech in Hindi in the QUAD meeting. He was looking flat and nervous engaging with international media. The reason was that hundreds of Indian Sikhs demonstrated against Modi in front of the White House carrying banners and placards against Mr. Modi. Leaders of the Sikh community in the United States, in their speeches, slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi, calling him a terrorist who has been charged in the United States on terrorism charges and the murder of thousands of Sikhs in India. It should be noted that since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Hindu extremist group RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) have been in power in India, 200 million Muslims in India have been victims of prejudice, torture, and genocide. In the last ten years, thousands of Muslims have been brutally killed by terrorism, lynching, and arson. Mosques and Churches have been demolished. Similarly, hundreds of Sikhs have been killed and thousands have been jailed on treason charges wiping out the Sikh liberation movement. Indian Christians are also brutally persecuted by Hindu extremists in various cities of different states of India. The Modi government is behind the killing of Muslims, Sikhs, and Christians by RSS activists. The agenda of the ruling BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to eliminate non-Hindus from India and convert India as a Hindu India from secular India.

Coming back to Australia; Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison did not mention China as a threat instead said that the AUKUS and QUAD will make sure no power can threaten the Indo-Pacific region.

In the official statement released from the Australian PM Office, Scott Morrison said:

We also recognize that our shared futures will be written in the Indo-Pacific, and we will redouble our efforts to ensure that the Quad is a force for regional peace, stability, security, and prosperity. Towards that end, we will continue to champion adherence to international law, particularly as reflected in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), to meet challenges to the maritime rules-based order, including in the East and South China Seas. We affirm our support to small island states, especially those in the Pacific, to enhance their economic and environmental resilience. We will continue our assistance with Pacific Island countries on responses to the health and economic impacts of COVID-19 and on quality, sustainable infrastructure, as well as a partner to mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change, which poses especially serious challenges for the Pacific.