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Chapter 4
Analysis and Recommendations

United States removed Hong Kong’s tangible initiative of a plan for the US

special economic status. It plans to and Japan to fund COVID-19 vaccine

relocate US pharmaceutical chains from production in India, with Australia helping

China, put an embargo on companies to distribute it in the ASEAN and Oceania
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linked to slave labor in Xinjiang, blocking region. Additionally, there were pledges to
billions of dollars’ worth of US pension work together in technological fields and
Implications to ASEAN
46
fund investments in China etc. There was climate change etc. The widening of the
an increased US mantra and statements Quad’s horizons does not dilute its China

to reassure Indo-Pacific allies to reduce centricity. Rather, its approach becomes

their tilt towards Beijing, in addition to more holistic and multidimensional,

a shift of US defense assets to the region, involving not only raw hard power but

and the prospect of billions of dollars in also smart power and soft power. It will
spending on a Pacific Deterrence Initiative help the Quad gain more credibility and
Evolving Geo-Strategic Matrix in South China Sea:
to strengthen Indo-Pacific partners’ help shift the prevailing narrative on the

47
36 capacities and interoperability. With Quad as a China-containing NATO like
the overt aggressive economic and coalition. Hence it can be safely deduced

military posturing of the United states, that Quad will not merely be a military

it is a certainty that its strategic focus on instrument of force projection, it will also

the Indo-Pacific is likely to stay in place act as an instrument of capacity building

for a foreseeable future. The engagement for the region associated with the South
is multi-dimensional, like Quad summit’s China Sea.

45 BBC (2020), ‘Xinjiang: US to Block Some Exports Citing China’s Human Rights Abuses’, 15 September
2020, https://www.bbc.com/news/business-54155809.
46 Swanson, A. (2020), ‘Federal Retirement Fund Halts Planned China Investment Under Pressure’, The
New York Times, 13 May 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/13/business/economy/china-
tsp-federal-retirement fund.html
47 House Armed Services Republicans (2020), ‘Fact sheet: Thornberry Indo-Pacific Deterrence Initiative’,
fact sheet, 14 April 2020.