“The strategic balance against China is increasing dramatically in the Indo-Pacific region,” said Professor Rory Medcalf, director of the College of National Security at the National University of Australia and author of the newly released Indo-Pacific Empire, which describes the power fight between China and the United States.
“The symbolism of these exercises is powerful,” Professor Medcalf told The Telegraph. “It is a powerful reminder that the quad’s combined armies – America, Japan, India, Australia – are more than enough to stop China, and that Beijing’s confrontational behavior has brought them together.”
“It is a reminder of the cord they could form if the confrontation ever escalated. China simply cannot control the vast Indo-Pacific region over which its oil lifelines and quasi-colonial ambitions have spread: it needs to find a balance point before a crisis overflows. “
China has recently raised the alarm with increasingly assertive moves in the disputed territories of the resource-rich South China Sea, and experts have warned against Chinese rule in a region where shipping trade routes are key to world trade and could be exploited for economic coercion.
Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei and Taiwan have claims over the territory to which Beijing maintains historic rights, and concerns have been raised by heavy Chinese investment in structures and facilities in the South China Sea, dredging rocks and reefs to expand disputed islands.
As the United States stepped up its freedom of navigation operations, China beefed up its own military exercises and last week deployed fighter jets to Woody Island in Paracels, an archipelago that also claims Taiwan and Vietnam.
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