Without evidence of real progress, NZ s foreign policy towards China looks increasingly empty stuff.co.nz - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from stuff.co.nz Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Russia s President Vladimir Putin and China s Xi Jinping walk down the stairs as they arrive for a BRICS summit in Brasilia, Brazil November 14, 2019. REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino/File Photo
President Joe Biden faces a nightmare scenario of global consequence: increasing Sino-Russian strategic cooperation aimed at undermining US influence and at upending Biden’s efforts to rally democratic allies.
It is the most significant and underrecognized test of Biden’s leadership yet: It could be the defining challenge of his presidency.
This past week, Russia and China simultaneously escalated their separate military activities and threats to the sovereignty of Ukraine and Taiwan respectively countries whose vibrant independence is an affront to Moscow and Beijing but lies at the heart of US and allies’ interests in their regions.
Very recently in the Bay of Bengal a naval exercise took place involving India, France, Japan and Australia. While it received little or no coverage in New Zealand, it nonetheless represented a foreign policy challenge as serious as any other this country currently faces.
The exercise was an extension of what is known as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or “Quad” for short. At the core of this relatively recent security grouping are the four major Indo-Pacific democracies: the United States, India, Japan and Australia.
The Quad group can also expand to include others. France was participating in the Indian exercise as part of a “Quad-plus” agreement emblematic of emerging political alliances forming in response to perceived Chinese influence and belligerence in the region.