Move over, Quad; the new Squad has landed

MANILA – As tensions rise in the South China Sea and the threat of a war over Taiwan becomes more palpable, the US Pentagon is stepping up its regional defense diplomacy in a potent challenge to China’s rising regional threats and ambitions.

Last week, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin hosted counterparts from Japan, Australia and the Philippines for what is being privately referred to as a budding new “Squad” defense partnership in the Indo-Pacific region.

The participants “share a vision for peace, stability and deterrence in the Indo-Pacific” and have “chartered an ambitious course to advance that vision together.” Austin said during a press conference on the sidelines of the defense summit in Hawaii, home to the US Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM).

Austin claimed the new quadrilateral is rapidly consolidating into a long-term security grouping.

The “Squad” meeting came just weeks after the four nations conducted their first-ever joint patrols in the hotly contested South China Sea and the historic Japan-Philippine-US trilateral summit between Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and US President Joe Biden at the White House.

In the coming months, the four Squad nations are set to enhance interoperability, conduct more joint patrols and drills, and enhance intelligence and maritime security cooperation – all with an eye on China’s expanding footprint across the Western Pacific.

Marcos Jr’s hard pivot to the West and his increasingly firm stance on Philippine claims vis-à-vis China in the South China Sea are driving the rapid institutionalization of the new quadrilateral grouping.

A dying Quad

In contrast to the better-known “Quad”, a security partnership comprising India, Australia, the US and Japan, the “Squad” has greater internal coherence and a clear shared strategic vision for the region. India remains close with its traditional security partner Russia and has openly defied Western-led sanctions on Moscow over its Ukraine invasion.   

Unlike India, the Philippines is a US mutual defense treaty ally and is set to finalize a Visiting Forces Agreement-style pact with Japan similar to its existing agreements with Australia and the US. The Marcos Jr administration has expanded the number of Philippine bases to which the US has rotational military access, including facilities close to Taiwan.  

The new “Squad” will likely further embolden the Philippines in its ongoing maritime tussles with China, which have recently intensified through Chinese “gray zone” tactic attacks on Philippine ships. That, in turn, has raised concerns of a possible armed conflict that draws in the US and perhaps by extension Japan and Australia.

China’s Communist Party-run Global Times mouthpiece has openly warned that the new “Squad” security grouping is “exacerbating regional risks”, underscoring Beijing’s growing irritation with Manila’s role as a new linchpin in America’s “integrated deterrence” strategy of counterbalancing China’s regional rise and ambitions.

The old Quad is under strain due to India’s refusal to align with the West’s punitive stance on Russia. That’s been seen in India’s refusal to condemn Russia’s actions at the United Nations or comply with Western sanctions imposed on Moscow, including on its crucial energy industry.

If anything, the Narendra Modi administration has steadfastly stood by Russia as a major strategic partner.

To the West’s consternation, India has continued to purchase advanced Russian weapons systems while massively expanding its imports of discounted Russian oil. Meanwhile, India has pushed back hard on what it sees as Western “hypocrisy” and neo-colonialism.

“Those who are economically dominant today are leveraging their production capabilities and those who have institutional influence or historical influence have actually weaponized a lot of those capabilities,” India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar complained during a conference on Global South nations.

“They (Western powers) will mouth all the right things, but the reality is still today, it’s very much a world of double standards,” he added, thus positioning India as a leader among rising powers and Global South nations that China is also cultivating through expanded trade and investment relations.

Despite its heated border disputes with China, India has also refused to join any coalition or major drills aimed at constraining Beijing’s maritime ambitions. Indeed, the South Asian power seems more interested in maximizing its own bid to become a “major power” by opportunistically pursuing strategic cooperation with competing superpowers.

Emboldened in Manila

This stands in stark contrast to the Philippines, which has consistently voted along similar lines as Western democracies in key UN votes, including on Russia and Myanmar.

Manila has also proactively pushed back against China in the South China Sea through legal cases and increased naval and coast guard deployments. And it is a mutual defense treaty ally of the US with increasingly robust defense engagement with both Australia and Japan.

The creation of the four-way Squad” wouldn’t have been possible without a major reorientation in Philippine foreign policy under Marcos Jr.

Throughout the previous Rodrigo Duterte administration, Manila consciously tried to avoid any anti-China coalition or grouping in favor of stable ties with all major powers. Initially, Marcos Jr also signaled a similar hedging strategy by underscoring his commitment to the Duterte era “friends to all, enemy to none” neutrality mantra.

Following a largely fruitless state visit to Beijing last year, which failed to produce any breakthroughs on outstanding bilateral issues including over the South China Sea, the Filipino president shifted gears by rapidly enhancing security cooperation with traditional allies led by the US.

Most notably, Marcos Jr has expanded the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) to give the Pentagon access to additional bases in the northern Philippines, pursued a trilateral Japan-Philippine-US (JAPHUS) security grouping and signed a new comprehensive strategic partnership pact with Australia.

The urgency for a new “quad” grouping has gained momentum following multiple collisions between Philippine and Chinese maritime forces in the South China Sea that have recently injured Filipino servicemen and damaged vessels.

The new “Squad”, inter alia, will reportedly regularize joint patrols in the South China Sea, expand maritime security coordination and intelligence-sharing in the Western Pacific, and help to accelerate the Philippines’ military modernization.

Even so, it’s not clear from the outset how the “Squad” can more effectively deter China’s “gray zone” strategy, including its regular use of water cannons and swarming tactics against Philippine maritime forces in disputed sea areas like the Second Thomas Shoal and Scarborough Shoal.

If anything, there is a risk that the “Squad” will embolden both the Philippines and China to take increasingly uncompromising and assertive stances, thus leading to further escalation of their disputes.

“The US is clearly trying to rally its allies – Japan and Australia – to support the Philippines, encourage the Philippines to engage in more military provocations in the South China Sea, exacerbate the complexity of the regional situation, and then find excuses to strengthen the military presence of the US, Japan and Australia in the South China Sea,” Wei Dongxu, a Beijing-based military expert, told the Global Times in response to the recent “Squad” meeting.

The Chinese expert warned that “involvement of external countries and forces in [the] South China Sea issues will only further complicate the situation in the region and flaunting their military power will not only affect normal regional cooperation but may also lead to conflicts.”

While the Philippines sees the “Squad” as a legitimate effort to protect its sovereign rights and uphold a rules-based order in the maritime region, China clearly sees the new quadrilateral grouping as part of America’s containment strategy. The upshot will likely be sustained escalation and brinkmanship in the South China Sea for the foreseeable future.

Follow Richard Javad Heydarian on X at @Richeydarian