Need To Know: June 7

India Moves Closer To The Quad

India has taken another step toward joining the Quad - a proposed alliance of itself, America, Japan and Australia to deal with Chinese ambitions.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison signed the Mutual Logistics Support Agreement during their bilateral online summit on Thursday. The agreement enables each country’s military to use the other’s bases for repair and supplies.

Additional agreements are expected in cyber technology, military technology, mining and minerals, and water resources management. They also discussed other matters such as trade, taxation and economic cooperation.

Modi and Morrison agreed to use the agreement, and upcoming defense exercises to increase military interoperability between their countries. While these negotiations were underway for awhile, China’s provocative act of seizing Indian territory in the Galwan Valley in May certainly gave India impetus to integrate deeper.

India has been the most reluctant partner in the Quad. Yet, it’s the critical one because India is best positioned to cut off the vital flow of Chinese oil from the Persian Gulf.

If the other three members don’t have to do that in a conflict, it gives them many more assets to use against China in the Pacific. And forces China to deploy many more of its own to the Indian Ocean.

Australia has also been cautious. A third of its trade is with China.

But China slapped an 80 percent tariff on Australian barley and suspended 35% of Australian beef imports, after Australia joined calls for investigations into the source of the Covid-19 outbreak.

This is another example of Xi Jinping’s blundering and aggressive diplomacy backfiring.

Solidifying the Quad against China would be the biggest strategic mistake since Germany united the unlikely combination of Britain, France, and Russia against it in the run up to World War I.

Philippines Backs Off Threat To Terminate Pact With U.S.

Another example of China’s snarl backfiring this week. Philippine Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin said Manila will not terminate the Visiting Forces Agreement with the United States.

The agreement exempts U.S. military personnel from passport and visa regulations when they come and go for joint exercises and training of troops in the Philippines. This allows for close integration of American and Filipino forces.

While the formal Mutual Defense Treaty would’ve likely remained intact, it would’ve been relatively toothless without the VFA. Most of the more than 300 annual bilateral exercises would have been scrapped, to say nothing of a landmark 2014 basing agreement that could become Washington’s biggest check on China’s expansion into the South China Sea.

The Duterte government threatened to scrap VFA over Washington's decision to cancel the U.S. visa of Philippine Sen. Ronald dela Rosa. The former chief of National Police, dela Rosa, enforced President Duterte's war on drugs, which has killed thousands and has been condemned by international human rights watchdogs.

The Philippines is a key target for China. Look at this upside down map of the Chinese coast and you understand why. From Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines, the U.S. can effectively blockade the Chinese coast, cutting China off from vital resources its needs like Persian Gulf oil.

Realistically, the Philippines is the only country China has a hope of flipping into its camp. It has certainly made inroads in wooing the country’s elite, though its aggressive acts in offshore fishing disputes undermine that. The Philippine people also generally remain skeptical of China.

But with China’s diplomacy becoming increasingly aggressive in the last few months, it’s not surprising Duterte has decided his country needs options.

Cambodian Leader Denies China's Navy Granted Basing Rights

Cambodia’s leader says China has not been given exclusive rights to use a naval base on the country’s southern coast, and that warships from all nations, including the United States, are welcome to dock there.

Prime Minister Hun Sen was responding to persistent news reports and concern expressed by Washington that Beijing had been granted basing privileges at Cambodia’s Ream naval base on the Gulf of Thailand.

China has made a massive investment on the southern coast of Cambodia. A special economic zone there is home to 100-plus factories run by Chinese companies. 200 more are planned. Chinese companies also own US $4.2 billion worth of power plants and offshore oil operations.

Hun repeated denials he issued last year after The Wall Street Journal reported that an early draft of a reputed agreement seen by U.S. officials would allow China use of the Ream naval base for 30 years, where it would be able to post military personnel, store weapons and berth warships.

In addition to being a valuable supply depot, a base at would give China the ability to monitor maritime activities along the entire perimeter of the mainland South-East Asian coastline.

If warplanes were to launch from nearby Dara Sakor airport, they would be able to strike targets in the strategically important Malacca Strait. That’s one critical chokepoint for any blockade of China. They could also hit Vietnam, Singapore, and Thailand.

China’s money allowed Hun to crackdown on opposition. Cambodia was a notional democracy. But in in 2017, Hun forcibly dissolved the main opposition party, turning Cambodia into a de facto one-party state.

The European Union has begun the process of revoking its preferential trade agreement with Cambodia - tantamount to imposing economic sanctions. Hun Sen has said China will fill any gaps left behind by retreating western donors.