Asia-Pacific allies close ranks to secure the region

After an absence of 13 years, Australia’s return to the annual Malabar naval exercise is significant and welcome. The exercise has assumed crucial importance for the security of the Indo-Pacific region at a time of unrelenting Chinese belligerence. Announcing Australia’s participation alongside fellow members of the Quad alliance India, Japan and the US in next month’s exercise in the Indian Ocean, Defence Minister Linda Reynolds said Malabar 2020 would “showcase the deep trust that exists among the four major Indo-Pacific democracies and their will to work together on common security interests”.

Senator Reynolds avoided mentioning China by name, but she left no doubt Beijing was uppermost in the minds of all the Quad nations’ leaders when she emphasised that Malabar, the region’s premier annual combined naval manoeuvre, would demonstrate “our collective resolve to support an open and prosperous Indo-Pacific”. The Chinese Communist Party will no doubt see the exercise as a cause for further denunciation of Australia, India and the other Quad nations.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi earlier this month denounced the alliance as part of Washington’s strategic plan to build an “Indo-Pacific NATO”. The Quad was the product of a “Cold War mentality” aimed at “stirring up geopolitical competition”, he said. Beijing’s Global Times lambasted India for inviting Australia. Doing so, it said, was a sign New Delhi was trying to “expand its sphere of influence into the entire Indian Ocean and South Pacific”.

Chinese paranoia is no surprise. But Beijing will surely recognise the powerful coalition of the four major Indo-Pacific democracies joining forces to sharpen and finetune their navies at a time of increasing Chinese aggression.

In recent years, governments in New Delhi have been skittish about inviting Australia back. They were nervous about provoking further Chinese aggression against India in the Himalayas, already a tinderbox. But such reservations have now been superseded by strategic imperatives.

The joint announcement by Senator Reynolds and Japanese Defence Minister Kishi Nobuo of closer bilateral military co-operation is also important. Declaring their “strong opposition” to “coercive unilateral actions” in the South and East China seas, they vowed to undertake bilateral and multilateral freedom-of-navigation operations “to maintain a free and open, secure, inclusive and prosperous region”. In strengthening bilateral military co-operation, Japan pledged that its Self-Defence Forces would “protect Australian Defence Force assets” if they came under threat. The two countries will enhance military interoperability through military exercises and joint operations.

Beijing will doubtless see Australia’s return to Malabar and the strengthened military relationship between Australia and Japan as evidence the world is ganging up on it, just as it did over the call for an inquiry into the provenance of COVID-19. But it is the CCP’s own belligerence that is leading democracies to join forces.