Syllabus: Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India’s interests.
About Quad
- Plurilateral framework of maritime democracies and Global Force for Good delivering real, positive, enduring impact for Indo-Pacific.
- Members: diplomatic partnership (neither military alliance nor mutual defense agreement) between Australia, India, Japan, US.
- Committed to supporting open, stable, prosperous Indo-Pacific that is inclusive and resilient ensuring regional stability.
Structure
- Quad Leaders’ Summits and Foreign Ministers’ Meetings held on annual basis ensuring regular high-level engagement.
- Mandate gradually expanded with six working groups: health, climate, critical/emerging technology, space, infrastructure, cyber ensuring comprehensive cooperation.
Global Significance
- Promotes free, open Indo-Pacific region upholding international laws like UN Convention on Law of Sea (UNCLOS).
- Economic collaboration in infrastructure investment, cooperation on standards, supply chains ensuring economic integration and resilience.
Significance for India
- Strategic Balance
- Serves as counterbalance to China’s growing influence particularly in Indo-Pacific region ensuring strategic equilibrium.
- Offers India platform to align with like-minded countries enhancing security posture, reducing threat of Chinese encirclement significantly.
- Maritime and Security
- Helps ensure free, open, inclusive Indo-Pacific region upholding international laws ensuring freedom of navigation comprehensively.
- Boost to military capability: bilateral defense partnerships supplement India’s defense capabilities especially in maritime domain through Malabar exercise.
- Economic and Strategic
- Strengthening Act East Policy: contributes to India’s strategic objectives of strengthening ties with East Asia and Southeast Asia.
- Technological cooperation: India benefits from initiatives building secure supply chains in critical areas like semiconductors reducing China dependency.
- Supply Chain Resilience initiative launched by India, Japan, Australia aligning with Aatmanirbhar Bharat initiative ensuring self-reliance.
- Health and Humanitarian
- Played pivotal role during COVID-19 pandemic committing to deliver up to billion vaccine doses globally ensuring health security.
- Active in disaster response helping countries during natural calamities providing humanitarian assistance and disaster relief comprehensively.
Challenges
- Institutional and Strategic
- Less institutionalization: remains relatively institutionalized maintained by meetings, semi-regular summits, information exchanges lacking permanent structure.
- China criticized Quad diplomacy as reflective of “Cold War mentality” and attempt to establish “Asian NATO” showing geopolitical tensions.
- Divergent Interests
- India focuses mainly on regional security regarding China; US has broader global strategic interests showing different priorities.
- Australia’s economic reliance on China and Japan’s security dependence on US further complicates alignment among members.
- Defining Quad’s purpose as distinct from ASEAN, Pacific Islands Forum, IORA has proven difficult requiring clear differentiation.
- US Attention
- Wars in Europe and Middle East mean US attention to Asia will be more limited affecting Indo-Pacific focus.
India’s Concerns
- Strategic Autonomy
- Reluctance towards military alliance: India cautious about Quad becoming formal military alliance valuing non-traditional security cooperation only.
- Values strategic autonomy: resistant to collective military role which would compromise its strategic autonomy and independent foreign policy.
- China Relations
- India only Quad member sharing borders with China; imperative to ensure Quad not reduced to anti-China grouping.
- Reactivating tensions with China possible affecting bilateral relations and border stability requiring careful diplomatic management comprehensively.
- Other Partnerships
- Other groups like SQUAD (Australia, Japan, Philippines, US) may take focus away from Quad diluting its effectiveness.
- India’s flexible approach: continues nurturing partnerships with countries antagonistic toward Quad like SCO members ensuring balanced diplomacy.
- Involvement could alienate important Indian partners like Russia and Iran affecting traditional relationships and strategic partnerships.
Way Forward
- Institutionalization
- Establishing formal structure or secretariat could enhance effectiveness making it more permanent feature in regional security engagements.
- Regional Engagement
- Augment existing organizations: Quad should seek to augment other multi-laterals and provide inclusive vision for cooperation not replacing them.
- Engage other players: proactively engage with regional partners in initiatives resonating with their respective interests and priorities.
- Strategic Approach
- Balancing clarity and ambiguity: by not explicitly highlighting traditional security concerns like Chinese military actions focusing on shared interests.
- Minimize risk of direct confrontation with China while advancing cooperative agenda in Indo-Pacific ensuring regional stability comprehensively.