India, Japan, and the United States, a group known as the 'Quad,' are meeting in Tokyo today. Australia's Foreign Minister Penny Wong will participate in talks expected to focus on maritime security, technology, and cybersecurity. Expert in international diplomacy Melissa Conley Tyler says the meeting is important to the region.
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00:00Well, look, it brings together Australia with our ally, the US, our long-term friend, Japan,
00:06and our newest friend, India, to try to get a common view of security issues in the Indo-Pacific.
00:12It is particularly important that it keeps meeting at foreign ministers' level because,
00:17as you say, it has been hard to meet at leaders' level recently.
00:22President Biden had to cancel coming to the Quad leaders' meeting in Sydney, and India
00:26wasn't able to get him out to India earlier this year, and we're now, of course, in US
00:31election season.
00:32So, it's important that foreign ministers come together and keep working on what is
00:36a very ambitious list of projects that the Quad is trying to pursue.
00:40Oh, give us a flavour of what some of them are, then, this ambitious list.
00:44Well, at various points, the Quad has looked at all issues of Indo-Pacific security, whether
00:50that's climate change, whether that's technology and supply chains, connectivity, whether it's
00:57tensions in the maritime areas of the region.
01:02At the moment, I think there's a big focus on new technologies and the way that the four
01:08countries in the Quad can work together on those.
01:10Yeah, we've already heard that Australia will be giving about $18 million towards what's
01:18being labelled cable connectivity and resilience.
01:22Where does that money go exactly?
01:24Look, it's a very exciting initiative.
01:26So this new centre looks at cable resilience, and what we mean by that is undersea cables.
01:32So those highways of information that are absolutely crucial for modern economies, but
01:39which are quite vulnerable, which are vulnerable to natural disaster, vulnerable to accident,
01:43and vulnerable to deliberate sabotage.
01:46So the $18 million will be spent setting up a new centre.
01:51It'll be a whole-of-government initiative, but housed in Department of Foreign Affairs
01:55and Trade, and it'll work with countries in the region on the technical side, regulation,
02:00governance, et cetera, to make sure that those cables are safe and secure.
02:05And I find it interesting that these days it really does show this all-tools-of-statecraft,
02:10whole-of-nation type approach.
02:12We see a security problem, but often the answer to that particular security problem isn't
02:17specifically defence.
02:19It's bringing together the whole range of tools and capacities that we have in Australia,
02:24and helping bring those to bear on the problem.
02:27So it's a very interesting example of that newer idea of all-tools-of-statecraft.
02:30OK.
02:31Melissa, how much is cybersecurity and intelligence sharing part of this quad group?
02:38It is to some extent.
02:40Clearly India comes from a very different foreign policy tradition.
02:44And so one of the things that the quad is trying to do is to socialise India into working
02:49with the three existing partners, Australia, Japan, and the US, and try to get more of
02:57a common view on some of these issues.
02:59Now both India, both Japan, care a lot about some of these cyber and security issues.
03:05So they are very high on the agenda.
03:07OK.
03:08We sometimes fall into this trap when a group of countries like this meets to say it's to
03:13stave off the ever-present threats of China's influence in various regions.
03:19Is that the case here?
03:22The quad members would never say that that was the case.
03:25Certainly that is China's perception, and I think it's the perception of many countries
03:29in the region.
03:32That however doesn't have to be seen as conflict.
03:35It could be seen as healthy competition.
03:39That it is in everybody's interest that this region not be dominated by any one power,
03:46on whatever front that is, whether that's economically, security, in cyber and infrastructure.
03:52And what the quad does is tries to build public goods for the whole region, giving other choices
03:59to the countries than just the Chinese offering.
04:02Just one final word about climate resilience and climate change.
04:07We're told that that will be on the agenda.
04:10Very much so, and it has to be all the time.
04:13I think it's interesting.
04:14It will have been on the agenda all week.
04:15So Foreign Minister Wong is in Japan after attending the Japan Pacific Island leaders
04:22meeting.
04:23So talking about how Australia and Japan can work with Pacific Island leaders, and they
04:27will be talking a lot about climate change.
04:29And she's also attending the Foreign Ministers of ASEAN meeting, the East Asia Forum, and
04:37going to Korea.
04:38So a lot into the trip, and climate will be part of all of those discussions.