Haruko Satoh, an eminent geopolitical analyst at the Osaka School of International Public Policy, holds a roundtable conversation with Herman Joseph S. Kraft from the University of the Philippines and Kei Koga from Nanyang Technological University, on how Southeast Asian states perceive the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (the Quad) — the informal strategic forum linking the United States, Japan, India and Australia. In Southeast Asia, the Quad is rarely judged on its own terms, but read through two overlapping anxieties: US–China rivalry and the fear that new “minilateral” clubs weaken Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) centrality — the idea that ASEAN should remain the region’s primary diplomatic hub. Because the Quad’s purpose has shifted over time, perceptions have split by country, by strategic exposure and by how much faith local elites still place in ASEAN’s convening power.

A Quad that begins with an omission

Satoh frames the Quad’s problem as structural. The grouping talks about the “Indo-Pacific,” but Southeast Asia sits at the geographic and diplomatic center of that map, and yet ASEAN is not in the room. That absence, she suggests, is one reason the Quad struggles to inspire confidence. Regional states ask what it stands for, and whether it is meant to work with ASEAN or around it.

Additionally, Satoh hints at a second imbalance. The Quad’s members are strategically asymmetrical. India’s tradition of nonalignment, Australia’s alliance dependence and Japan’s deep economic interdependence with China complicate any clean bloc identity. Even before policy is discussed, the Quad arrives in Southeast Asia as an external design with unclear regional buy-in.

The “counter-China” story that won’t die

Koga argues that the Quad’s reputational starting point still shapes everything that follows. When the Quad was resurrected in 2017, it landed in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s strategic framing — especially the 2017 National Security Strategy, which identifies “China and Russia as a revisionist power.” In Southeast Asia, that context hardens an early impression: The Quad is less a provider of stability than a mechanism for balancing — or containing — China.

The Quad countries later tried to dilute that image. They emphasized ASEAN centrality, talked more about regional rules and norms, and, under US President Joe Biden’s administration, built working groups around public goods — health, climate, technology and supply chains. Yet the first impression persists. Even when Southeast Asian observers acknowledge that the Quad has evolved, suspicion lingers that the public-goods agenda is secondary to strategic competition. The result is a credibility gap: The Quad may be changing, but many in the region assume its original logic remains intact beneath the messaging.

Southeast Asia is not one audience

Kraft pushes against the habit of treating Southeast Asia as a single strategic mind. Drawing on the ISEAS — Yusof Ishak Institute’s annual State of Southeast Asia Survey (which samples regional experts), he describes a region that simultaneously worries about the Quad and still finds it potentially useful.

Two recurring concerns dominate. First is ASEAN centrality: experts fear the Quad could compete with ASEAN-led mechanisms and dilute ASEAN’s role as an agenda-setter. Second is forced choice: the Quad may intensify US–China rivalry and pressure smaller states into alignment, provoking sharper Chinese responses. Simultaneously, if the Quad delivers tangible public goods and works in a complementary way with ASEAN, it could help cushion the region from the worst spillovers of major-power competition.

Country differences matter. Maritime states with acute security frictions with China, especially the Philippines and Vietnam, tend to view the Quad more positively. To them, balancing power in the South China Sea feels immediately relevant. By contrast, parts of continental Southeast Asia, including Thailand, Cambodia and Laos, often show greater skepticism, reflecting different threat perceptions and different degrees of reliance on China.

Trump 2.0 and the problem of US commitment

The conversation then turns from perception to durability. Koga argues that the current Trump administration is unlikely to treat regional order-building as a goal in itself. “They are not, like, really concerned about the future of the international rules-based order,” he posits. If Washington deprioritizes multilateral frameworks, the Quad’s identity shifts again — this time not because of messaging, but because of resourcing and leadership.

Kraft reinforces the point with a blunt assessment of Trump’s instinctive posture. Trump’s first administration showed a “tendency to be suspicious of multilaterals,” he says. He also points to an emerging strategic style that privileges bilateral transactions over alliance stewardship, noting that a recent US strategy document contains “absolutely no reference to working with allies.” In that world, the Quad becomes less a US-led platform and more a test of whether Japan, Australia and India are willing and able to carry it.

Without consistent US leadership, the Quad could drift from a rules-and-norms narrative toward a more traditional balance-of-power arrangement, reinforcing the very “counter-China” interpretation the group has tried to escape.

The Philippines, the “Squad” and ASEAN’s last advantage

Nowhere is the region’s strategic squeeze clearer than in the Philippines. Kraft worries that the response by its capital of Manila to Chinese pressure is pushing it toward deeper militarization and tighter operational alignment with US allies. The logic is often framed as a necessity — Manila has no choice but to seek partners to balance China. Yet this posture can isolate the Philippines inside ASEAN, where several members remain wary of being pulled into intensified rivalry.

This is the context for the so-called “Squad” — a looser maritime security arrangement linking the US, Japan, Australia and the Philippines. It may strengthen deterrence and coordination, but it also risks sharpening regional polarization and increasing the chance of crisis dynamics in contested waters.

Against that backdrop, Satoh, Kraft and Koga all defend ASEAN’s continued relevance, even if it is frequently dismissed as a “talk shop.” Koga stresses that talking by itself can be strategically valuable, as it convenes rivals, lowers temperatures and buys time for diplomacy. Kraft warns that ASEAN’s convening power is only as strong as member commitment — and internal fractures, such as the Thailand–Cambodia dispute, make ASEAN more vulnerable to outside influence-peddling.

Over the next five years, the most plausible path will not be a single dominant architecture, but a proliferation of overlapping groupings — some focused on public goods, others on maritime security and many designed as hedges against uncertainty. The challenge for the Quad, Satoh suggests, is volume control. It can be a useful quartet, but only if it plays in harmony with the concert hall that still brings the region together.

[Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.]

[Note: This FO Talks/FO Live is part of the Osaka School of International Public Policy’s “Peace and Human Security in Asia: Toward a Meaningful Japan-Korea Partnership” project supported by the Korea Foundation.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.