The United States has formed a new Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QSD), which is known as the “Quads”. This is an anti-Chinese group composed since 2007 of Japan, Australia and India. Following a change in government, Australia had left the group, making Washington’s strategy a failure, returned to it in 2010.

The Trump Administration is preparing a project to steal China’s thunder. The initiative the Chinese have in mind is to create new communication routes along the model of the former Silk route.

In 2009, the Chinese Communist Party had chosen General Xi Jinping to create a system of trade communication covering the whole planet. Once Xi became president, he gradually revealed his project, whose routes will cross around 70 countries at an estimated cost of 124 billion dollars.

The Quad countries met in November 2017, at the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit. On 23 February 2018, the Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and President Donald Trump will discuss at the White House, the framework of their project aimed at provide an alternative to the Chinese initiative.

In December, the Australian government published its 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper in which it advises involving the US to contain China.

On 15 February 2018, Admiral Kurt Tidd, Head of SouthCom, had violently denounced the contention that the new Silk Route presented a risk to US influence.