(L-R) India s Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Japan s Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi, Japan s Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, Australia s Foreign Minister Marise Payne and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo before a Quad Indo-Pacific meeting at the prime minister s office in Tokyo on October 6, 2020 AFP
The Economist magazine recently reported that when the United States, Australia, India, and Japan met in 2007 for a quadrilateral dialogue on security matters, many bet that the new grouping would “fizzle.”
The magazine noted that once non-aligned India, was “still suspicious of anything that smacked of an alliance.”
But defense ties among the four nations are now rapidly strengthening.
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A new way for the highway as Africa struggles with Chinese debt Jevans Nyabiage jevans.nyabiage@scmp.com A highway leading north of Nairobi that was built by Chinese companies. Beijing has urged private firms to play a greater role in Africa. Photo: AP
In the Kenyan capital Nairobi, a new four-lane highway is taking shape.
Funded and built by China at a cost of US$600 million, it will cut right through the heart of the city in a bid to reduce traffic jams.
The 27km (17-mile) highway also marks a slow shift away from public debt finance to a new way of funding infrastructure like roads and power plants in Africa: through public-private partnerships.