The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue between India, the United States, Japan, and Australia (the Quad, sometimes referred to as the QSD) was created over a decade ago, but it has been given a new lease on life by more compelling strategic circumstances in the Indo-Pacific. Xi Jinping’s China actively challenges the existing order, while Donald Trump’s United States sends mixed signals on whether it even wants to maintain its de facto global leadership. More active participation by other major powers in Asia, joined with the United States, sounds like an uncontroversially good idea. But the debate about the revived Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad 2.0, has been centered on the negatives: the harm it could cause, rather than what it can really contribute. Those assumptions are based on perceptions (or more correctly, misperceptions), whereby the Quad is seen as too confrontational towards China, and challenging or sidelining the centrality of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to discussions of security in the Indo-Pacific. These misperceptions have been so strong, that more ink has been spilled explaining what the Quad is not and what it does not intend, rather than on what it is and what objectives it has. Continue reading “HOW SOUTHEAST ASIANS REALLY PERCEIVE THE QUADRILATERAL SECURITY DIALOGUE” →