The Quad leaders insisted, once again, that the forum is not directed against China.
Hosting his last summit of the Quad that brings together leaders of Australia, India, Japan, and the US, President Joe Biden said he is impressed by the new things the forum finds to do each time they meet. Meeting the sixth time in less than four years in Biden’s hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, the Quad showcased a wide range of agreements — from curing cervical cancer to cooperation on cybersecurity, joint port development in the Indo-Pacific to the creation of an air logistics network in the region and laying the foundation for cooperation in bio technology and quantum computing. Sceptics, however, will say the multiple Quad initiatives announced at each summit are small beer. Friendly critics in the US and elsewhere want the Quad to become a more coherent and tight-knit organisation with a permanent secretariat and greater focus on military cooperation to deal with the principal strategic challenge in the Indo-Pacific — the increasing assertiveness of Chinese power. It was India’s reluctance to join military alliances and its preference for an informal forum for Indo-Pacific cooperation that has shaped the expansive evolution of the Quad in the last four years.
The smallness of the agenda does not mean that achievements of the Quad are inconsequential. In focusing on the provision of public goods in the Indo-Pacific, the Quad has avoided being branded as the “Asian Nato” and inviting the ire of the regional states that had no desire to see an American-led military alliance against China. Over the last four years, the Quad has become more acceptable to the once sceptical ASEAN that now appreciates the Quad’s light touch on security. For India, which is the only “non-ally” of the US in the forum, the Quad has opened up an expansive agenda of regional cooperation with the US and its Asian allies.
The Quad leaders insisted, once again, that the forum is not directed against China. That does not mean that deterring Chinese expansionism is not on the minds of the Quad partners. The US is developing more explicit military instruments such as the AUKUS, deeper trilateral security cooperation with South Korea and Japan, and lending military support for the Philippines that is at the receiving end of Chinese aggressiveness on the disputed frontiers. India and the US have steadily increased the range and depth of their military cooperation in the last few years. In formally separating the Quad from their bilateral military cooperation, they have created much-needed political room to sidestep the traditional Indian emphasis on “non-alignment” and the US preference for security cooperation through “military alliances”. Finally, there is an entrenched Indian perception that the Quad and the bilateral strategic partnership with the US have complicated Delhi’s ties with Beijing. But the sophistication of the Quad’s approach, individual and collective, towards China, may be opening more diplomatic space for engagement with Beijing. Reportedly, Biden told his Quad partners in Wilmington that China’s leader Xi Jinping is “looking to buy himself some diplomatic space” in order “to focus on domestic economic challenges and minimise the turbulence in China”. There will be several opportunities for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to test this proposition when he runs into President Xi on the margins of many multilateral forums, including the East Asia Summit, the BRICS and G-20.
