When the top diplomats of four major Asia-Pacific nations met here in the Indian capital on Friday to discuss issues in the region, one had a direct message for the behemoth whose shadow loomed over the talk.
China must “act under the international institutions, standards and laws” to avoid conflict, Yoshimasa Hayashi, the foreign minister of Japan, said on a public panel that included his counterparts from the United States, India and Australia.
That request is one that every official on that stage has made on many occasions. Although Russia’s war in Ukraine has dominated diplomatic dialogue around the globe this past year, the dilemma of dealing with an increasingly assertive China is ever-present — and for many nations, a thornier problem than relations with Moscow. They subscribe to the framing that President Biden and his aides have presented: China is the greatest long-term challenge, and the one nation with the power and resources to reshape the American-led order to its advantage.
B.C. Begley 