China on Wednesday attacked a Foreign Security Dialogue (Quad) meeting held at Melbourne on February 10-11, accusing members including India, stepping on the wedges in the region and had a “cold war mentality”.
Against Quad in strong words, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said as a “block”, it was trying to trigger confrontations unlike China, which stands for peace and development.
Beijing previously criticized the quad as a cold war construction and click “targeting other countries”.
Minister of India’s external affairs Jaisankar will join his colleagues from Australia, Japan and the US for meetings under the Quad mechanism in Melbourne on February 10-11; This meeting is expected to set the agenda for the Quad leader summit in Japan later this year.
This will be the fourth level meeting of the Indo-Pacific democracy block.
The leaders of the four countries have met in the September Summit, which was attended by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Asked to comment on reports that said the Summit would discuss ways to fight China’s challenges, Zhao Lijian the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs launched a long attack on Quad, especially the US. “The US has long lost its reputation as a democracy. However, it is still trying to force other countries to accept US-style democratic standards. The US draws a line along the values of democracy, and composes small blocks. This is a complete betrayal of democratic values,” Zhao said.
We oppose the exclusive block to make block confrontations, “he said.
China is looking for peace, development, and cooperation. We advance the construction of an open, inclusive Asia-Pacific security system, and not targeting the third country,” he added.
“We hope that the US countries and relevant can get a clear picture of this situation, feel relaxed, leaving the cold war mentality, stop driving slices between regional countries and contributing to regional peace, stability, and prosperity,” spokesman added.
The consensus in Beijing is that the four countries come together to fight the increasing influence of China and flex their diplomatic muscles in the South China Sea riding on the dispute and the Indo-Pacific region.
In November 2017, New Delhi, Tokyo, Washington, and Canberra gave forms on the old proposal to set a quad to develop coordinated strategies to keep the route of a critical maritime in the indo-Pacific region free of influence.
In 2018, members of the Chinese State Council and Foreign Minister Wang Yi had described the quad as “… Seafoam in the Pacific or Indian Ocean: They may get attention, but will soon disappear”.
In 2020, Wang came to acknowledge that Quad has become a “security threat” and what is called “New NATO” Indo-Pacific.
