Asia: The Asian Quad model? The Beatles, according to Japan’s top diplomat | India News

NEW DELHI: As Asia’s “Quad” powers seek ways to define the group, Japan’s foreign minister has offered a role model: The Beatles.
Yoshimasa Hayashi, a music enthusiast, drew parallels with the Fab Four on Friday as he met his Quad counterparts from the United States, Australia and India in New Delhi.
“It’s kind of a band like the Beatles. The members are fixed and they’ve been playing together for (over) 10 years,” Hayashi said.
“But it’s more of a kind of soft band, so even within the Beatles, Paul McCartney can release a solo album.”
Hayashi himself is a talented pianist, who seduced his Group of Seven counterparts with an impromptu performance of John Lennon’s “Imagine” when they met in 2021 in the band’s hometown of Liverpool.
The Quad was led by the late Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as an alliance of democracies, which China has described as an attempt to encircle it.
Its members deny hostile intentions and stress that they are not a military alliance, but rather cooperate in areas such as vaccine production and disaster relief.
US Secretary of State Antoine Blinken — himself a guitarist who has released his own classic rock-inspired songs — made a similar remark to Hayashiif less musically.
“We consider this variable geometry,” he said.
“There are different collections of countries – some informal alliances, some looser partnerships, some working together on a bilateral basis, some in slightly larger groupings,” he said.
“The idea is really to make sure we are fit for a particular challenge.”

malek

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