On May 23, before the Quad leaders’ summit in Tokyo, the United States launched the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) with a diverse group of 12 countries initially — Australia, Brunei, India, Indonesia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. The US-led economic engagement is a salient attempt to allow countries to decouple from Chinese over-dependence in order to ultimately strengthen the existing free and open rules-based global order, which China has been targeting to upend, and re-establish US dominance. That the launch coincided with the Quad summit during President Joe Biden’s visit to Seoul and Tokyo signifies the essence of the Quad and its extension as a “plus” grouping.
