Banyan Quad stretches

摘要

WHEN AMERICA, Australia, India and Japan met in 2007 for a "quadrilateral dialogue" on security matters, many bet the new grouping would fizzle, despite acquiring the much snappier title of "the Quad". Once non-aligned India, still suspicious of anything that smacked of an alliance, was non-committal, but in the end it was Australia, discomfited by China's prickly reaction, that was the first to break ranks. What has changed, says Kevin Rudd, a former prime minister of Australia, is that President Xi Jinping has since "fundamentally altered the landscape" by projecting Chinese power across Asia and the Pacific.