Chinese spanner in India's Pacific designs

Melbourne, Mar 18: A strong pro-China lobby in Canberra is&13; reportedly working hard to thwart a quadrilateral security dialogue&13; involving the US, Japan, Australia and India.
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The possibility of four powerful economies coming together has got&13; impetus from the signing of the Australia-Japan joint declaration on&13; security in Tokyo on March 13.
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Australian Prime Minister John Howard and his Japanese counterpart&13; Shinzo Abe inked the historic agreement which would facilitate close&13; cooperation across the security front between the two of the strongest&13; Pacific region powers.
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The international politics experts augur this declaration would&13; pave way for the formation of the aforementioned 'axis of democracies'&13; with much larger global dimensions.
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But some Australian commentators have also ruled out chances of&13; any such quadrilateral arrangement as the Chinese lobby down under&13; would see it as another attempt to encircle the emerging superpower.
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It has been widely reported in the regional media that the US has&13; proposed widening the trilateral security dialogue between Japan, the&13; US and Australia to include the South Asian democracy.
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The opposition to such an alliance would be instantaneous and&13; ferocious. It is not only the Chinese apparatchik who would most likely&13; register displeasure, but also the strong pro-China lobby in Australia.
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The opposition leader Kevin Rudd has, in a what could be long term&13; foreign policy embarrassment for him, already opposed Australia-Japan&13; security declaration.
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Any suggestion of annoying China further, experts opine, would be&13; simply unthinkable for the emerging Australian politics pin-up boy.
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Alan Dupont, director of Sydney University's Centre for&13; International Security Studies, has also debunked the recent Australian&13; parleys with Japan labeling it an attempt to contain China.
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"It would be extremely unwise, in my view, to be drawn into a&13; quadrilateral arrangement which would only reinforce Chinese fears of&13; strategic encirclement," Dr Dupont told The Australian newspaper.
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"What would be the purpose of formalising such an alliance? The&13; only reason would be to constrain China's rising power. It smacks too&13; much like Cold War containment," the Australian academic added.
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Some observers also feel Australia's effort to impede the progress&13; of an alliance of the world's sole superpower, the second largest&13; economy in the world (Japan), and the second most populous nation on&13; earth may lead to the exclusion of the small Pacific country.
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"There must always be a difference in the political relationship&13; we have with a democracy as opposed to a dictatorship. An arrangement&13; like this with India is gold for Australia. If we don't join it, it&13; will happen without us" The Australian foreign affairs expert Greg&13; Sheridan wrote.
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