Quad power

The grouping still needs a cohesive agenda and structure

Tuesday’s meeting in Tokyo of foreign ministers of India, Australia, Japan and the United States for the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue or Quad suggests that the grouping is gaining some traction at last. Formed in 2007 following the coordination between these four democracies in relief work during the 2004 Tsunami and a maritime exercise, the grouping went into limbo owing to Australia’s reluctance to antagonise China then. Its revival in 2017 has been a response to China’s rising assertiveness in the region. This is the second ministerial meeting between Quad countries since then, giving the grouping a higher profile — the first was in September 2019 and the other six meetings have been at the level of senior bureaucrats. The fact that the participants agreed at Tokyo to make ministerial meetings an annual event underlines the escalating geopolitical concerns of the region’s four large democracies to uphold a “free, open and inclusive” Indo-Pacific. 

These values were reiterated in Tokyo, with Foreign Minister S Jaishankar usefully emphasising India’s commitment to upholding the rules-based international order and, among other things, “respect for territorial integrity, sovereignty and peaceful resolution of disputes,” an oblique message to China with which negotiations over encroachments over the Line of Actual Control (LAC) continues. His stance gained support from US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who made a specific reference to the LAC standoff as well as other actions in the Indo-Pacific region. Mr Pompeo’s somewhat forthright statement calling for the four-nation grouping to collaborate in countering China has certainly upped the ante for the Quad. China has long objected strongly to this grouping since its inception, dubbing it the “Asian Nato”. This is a premature descriptor, not least because greater cohesion and consolidation still elude the Quad, a pointer to its future challenges. For one, member-countries present separate readouts at each meet — and Tokyo was no exception — rather than a joint statement. For another, though each member-country has bilateral or trilateral security arrangements with the others, the grouping lacks a multilateral framework. This is admittedly a major threshold for the Quad countries to cross, and India is among those that prefers to keep its options open. That is why, though the Indian government has agreed “in-principle” to invite Australia to join the US and Japan in the joint Malabar exercises in November, no explicit invitation was extended at Tokyo. The Ministry of External Affairs has clarified that a decision would be taken closer to the date; it is expected to depend on the progress of negotiations on the LAC. 

Meanwhile, India has stressed the need to make the Quad more inclusive and sensitive to regional security concerns. To this end, New Delhi has played a role in getting the US to accept the centrality of Asean within a regional security architecture and has suggested inviting countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia to broaden its appeal. So the real questions that the Quad faces if it is to be an effective bulwark to the looming Asian superpower are, first, how much further can it go beyond flag-waving exercises and, second, what can it realistically hope to achieve in the naval sphere. The answer to the first question lies in aligning objectives — each country has multiple agendas that expand exponentially, from counter-terrorism to Covid-19 responses to digital connectivity and so on. The answer to the second is whether the countries involved are willing to raise defence expenditure. All have been reluctant spenders so far, especially India and Japan.