Directions: Read the following passage and answer the questions accordingly.

Over the past two years, there has been increasing agreement among the four most capable states in the Indo-Pacific that as China continues to rise, the rules and norms of the US-led order in Asia are steadily being eroded, and that action is needed to strengthen and defend it. While there are slight differences in emphasis, this sentiment was first reflected in Japan’s 2016 Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy, and then in Australia’s 2016 Defence White Paper and 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper, a number of recent diplomatic statements by India’s Prime Minister and his foreign minister, and most forthrightly in the US National Security Strategy of December 2017.

To varying degrees, all four states have reacted to a more assertive China under the leadership of President Xi Jinping, who has discarded much of his predecessor’s ‘smile diplomacy’ approach. Events in the East and South China Seas and issues related to the geostrategic and economic implications of the BRI are seen to challenge key aspects of the existing order. After a ten-year hiatus, the revival of the Australia-India-Japan-US security quadrilateral in November 2017 — informally known as the Quad — is an initiative that aims to support a ''free, open, prosperous and inclusive Indo-Pacific region''. The unstated assumption behind this development is that deeper cooperation among four highly capable countries sharing common interests, values, and threat perceptions has a greater chance of creating a balance of power favorable to the preservation of the current rules-based order across the Indo-Pacific. This analysis will scrutinize this assumption.