President's Commentary: Indo-Pacific Allies Pivot to Face China

As China continues to push the envelope and flex its economic, diplomatic and militaristic muscles toward an endgame of global dominance, other nations looking to curb the world’s most populous nation’s advancements are developing smart strategies of their own—chief among them is the alliance between four key democracies in the Asia-Pacific region.

Known commonly as the Quad, the four nations of Australia, India, Japan and the United States began collaborating to jointly address key areas such as the global economy, security, international law, technology innovation and more. Now is the time to open the aperture and seek commitments from other countries also interested in stabilizing the region under the existing rules-based international order.

China has noted over the years that the United States’ economic might has been tied to the fact that we have a strong military. This knowledge pushed the Chinese Communist Party to intensify its efforts to advance its economic growth, strengthen its military, expand its landmass and take a coercive role in global affairs. To date, China has matched or even exceeded the United States in salient areas such as shipbuilding, land-based conventional ballistic and cruise missiles, and integrated air defense systems.

While Chinese leaders are feeling—and enjoying—their muscle of late, the authoritarian government also is beginning to experience a weakening of its control on the population as more and more of the Chinese people see, learn about or experience the freedoms other nations’ citizens enjoy. As it stands, while the Chinese Communist Party is the sole governing party, in June of this year, the party’s membership represented just 6.7 percent of the population. On the surface, this might appear to be good news, but it remains imperative that we not lose sight of the fact that the government has direct and immediate control over its populace.

The government’s internal relationship with its citizens is proving as fragile as its external relationships. China’s partnerships of convenience with agreeable nations such as Russia and North Korea prolong China’s enduring global threats and serve to advance the nation’s own interests. But make no mistake, these nations aren’t friends. Think of their brittle bonds as those forged using the ancient proverb, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” The foundation is weak—and exploitable.

In China’s attempt to coerce change to the international world order to its advantage, it is pairing its pursuit of economic and military dominance with an increasing use of its own interpretation of international law, employing the use of technicalities and what scholars argue is a skewed historical argument on its claims to the South China Sea, for example.

Each issue separately seems manageable, but when woven together in the tumultuous tapestry of a government using forced strong-armed bullying to gain strength and wealth to benefit only itself, the picture makes a strong case for increased multination cooperation with pledges of solidarity, action and financial backing.

It’s important to note that excelling at the “soft skills” of diplomacy and partnerships must go hand-in-hand with achieving dominance in the “hardware” side of the equation, which means developing the differentiating solutions to allow the United States—and just as importantly, our coalition partners—to excel in contested disciplines such as information technology, cyber, secure networks, ground- and space-based communications and platforms, weaponry and much more.

The world faces a pivotal moment when it comes to global security. We hope that leaders of the Quad nations will set the example to entice nations not yet interested in joining or to embrace those already knocking on the doors. We must strive to produce a synchronized diplomatic, economic, technological and strong militaristic approach toward favorable outcomes, including free trade, regional safety and security, freedom of navigation and human rights for all nations.

Joining Lt. Gen. Robert Shea in writing this month’s President’s Commentary is Brig. Gen. Paul H. Fredenburgh III, USA (Ret.), who, as of mid-September, began serving as AFCEA International’s executive vice president for National Security and Defense. He recently retired following a distinguished military career in the U.S. Army that spanned 33 years, and most recently served as the deputy commander of Joint Force Headquarters-Department of Defense Information Network (JFHQ-DODIN) and director of Command, Control, Communications and Cyber (C4) for the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command from 2017 to 2019.