The leaders of the United States, India, Japan, and Australia committed to funneling $50 billion in infrastructure to the Indo-Pacific region and will launch a real-time system to track ships. While China wasn’t mentioned by name, these measures are widely understood as attempts to counter its influence as an infrastructure provider and tech standard-setter in the Indo-Pacific.
The announcements came during a meeting of the 4-nation Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (aka the Quad) in Tokyo. The initiatives were framed as steps against “coercive, provocative or unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo” in the Indo-Pacific, including “the militarization of disputed features, the dangerous use of coast guard vessels and maritime militia, and efforts to disrupt other countries’ offshore resource exploitation activities.” These accusations have all been aimed at China in the past.
