Former Japan PM Shinzo Abe’s Special Adviser, Dr Tomohiko Taniguchi speaks on the future of the Quad.
New Delhi: Dr Tomohiko Taniguchi, was Special Adviser to former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe until Mr Abe stepped down from his post on 16 September 2020. Between February 2013 and March 2014, Dr Taniguchi was Councillor, Prime Minister’s Office. Throughout the period of more than 90 consecutive months, his responsibilities included writing foreign-policy speeches for PM Abe. He spoke to the Managing Editor of NewsX.
Q: Dr Taniguchi, is the Quad something we should be excited about or should we take it with abundant caution? What is the pulse in Japan about the future of the Indo-Pacific and the Quad within it?
A: The Quad summit meeting that we have just seen is the beginning of a long road ahead. Over the next generation, until 2049, when China is going to celebrate its centenary, we have to tighten our belt because everything could be possible and we as peace-loving, rules abiding, democratic, maritime nations have to stick together so that we could overcome unpredictable ways.
Q: You are saying unpredictable ways, Sir. What is the genesis? Because here where we are sitting in Delhi, we have seen aggression. As we speak, there has been unprecedented deployment of our frontier forces on the India-Tibet border. How is it being viewed in Tokyo, Sir?
A: It takes us back to 1962 and in our neighbourhood, this is a daily phenomenon and it’s happening every day. Chinese official boats are entering into Japanese territorial waters to claim m that the waters are under their administrative control, which is far from the truth. The Japanese have to counter this aggression daily. So the Japanese have all the more empathy towards you Indians, who have to tackle the gigantic neighbour in your north, which is going to provoke your territorial integrity with a long term strategy to gain access to the Indian Ocean
Q: Is there an understanding that you feel is developing that what happens in the India-Tibet border and the South China Sea or in the Senkaku Islands or in the Taiwan Strait, they are all interconnected and are no longer individual theatres?
A: Well nothing has been separable for years and decades. If you put yourself into the shoes of the Chinese planners, it is obvious that China wants to expand 360 degrees and China is now strong and is now pursuing that long term goal so you cannot (separate) one from the other.
Q: Would you hope that the Quad is no longer just a summit meeting and actually materialises into either an annual summit or an organisation with a structure and a secretariat, perhaps even a treaty one day?
A: At the moment, it is a great opportunity for the four leaders to meet on a regular basis to say simply “we love you” and that’s an important habit to be nurtured and from that we are going to develop. But the coming decade being very much a serious one, that’s an opportune time for four leaders to meet on a regular basis and share their thoughts, opinions and exchange notes. This is very much important because birds of the same feather flock together and if you look at the Chinese, they don’t have someone who has the same feather.
Q: What is the threat coming out from China because it seems that our naivety and our open mindedness has left us insecure? I don’t know whether the blackout in Mumbai happened because of a Chinese cyber attack or the one place where the maximum amount of vaccines in the world are going to be made suddenly caught fire. LG, which is a massive South Korean company, which we wanted to partner with, in the middle of a lockdown, there was a gas explosion and the LG president had to be arrested which in turn affected our relationship. There is a different kind of warfare going on, Sir, and how do we get past our naivety?
A: The simplistic answer to your question is that the Chinese aggression and threat towards the rest of the world is multifaceted much much more so than the kind of threats we saw during the cold war era from the USSR. During the cold war era, it was basically about counting whether the USSR or the US had more nuclear warheads; but from China, you get all sorts of developments like cyber, space, deep space, bio-technology—these are the ones that we should look at. However, strong the United States may be, no country can actually cope with these kinds of multifaceted challenges we see from China. That is the rationale that we should accept.
Q: Dr Taniguchi, should there be a division of labour in the sense that should there be Indian ships or Quad ships patrolling together the Senkaku Islands, the Taiwan Strait or the SCS? Should there be separate spheres of influence or when we say come together, do we really need to come together in all fronts?
A: We must be creative to make the political cost and price as extensive as possible seen from the Chinese side. We need to be open and embrace other members: for instance, the United Kingdom, Germany and France are interested in sending their vessels to be part of the Quad arrangement, and Canada as well. So I think we can be much more flexible when it comes to the core strategy of the Quad. The core concept should be about geo-strategy.
Q: We don’t like playing games or we are not good at playing the games. How do we accept what is possible to do and what is not possible to do? How do we wise up?
A: The US, Japan, Australia and India have parliamentary systems and budgeting systems that are open and accountable. We don’t have maximum freedom using taxpayer’s money or central bank’s money to pursue immediate perspectives, which, maybe in the short term is not good news, but in the long term, we must count on the resilience of the democratic government structures. When it comes to the values one can find in democratic institutions, the Chinese feel very much that they don’t have such good things when compared to other nations. So we must hoist our flag, values as high as possible and as long as possible. This is a 30-year marathon and it has just started now.
Q: Where do we go from here and what is your best hope that happens in the next days and weeks because months and years will be too late?
A: The plan is that Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga is going to fly over the Pacific and will meet US President Joe Biden. This will be the first ever in-person meeting the US President is going to have. This itself will give a powerful message to China and to the rest of the world. The US is going to pay maximum attention to the Indo-Pacific sphere and the new administration is going to cherish the Quad and also that the US, Japan and others are determined to run a long term marathon.