Message from Tokyo

The Quad meet upped the ante against Beijing

China has found no direct mention in the Quad Joint Leaders’ Statement of more than 3,000 words, but a read-out of the document and events around the meeting point to a toughened tonality even as the scope of the grouping was sought to be widened. This much was clear in both Quad obligations and related developments at Tokyo. Of immediate consequence is the commitment in the joint statement that Quad partners would spend $50 billion-plus of infrastructure assistance and investment in the Indo-Pacific over the next five years, a direct challenge to China’s mammoth Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The