Quad’s future | How Biden’s departure, China’s rising domination will affect it?

The Quad Summit, which ended last week in the United States, expressed hope that it would last beyond Joe Biden’s presidency and raised serious concern about the situation in the East and South China Seas, where China’s assertive rise has caused major disruption to the regional status quo.

With an obvious reference but without naming China, the joint statement said, “We are seriously concerned about the situation in the East and South China Seas.” It added, “We continue to express our serious concern about the militarization of disputed features, and coercive and intimidating manoeuvres in the South China Sea.”

The Quad Summit, which had the US, India, Japan, and Australia as its four members, was held in Wilmington, Delaware.

The coast guards of Quad countries will engage more closely with each other, and the summit announced a plan to launch the first-ever Quad-at-Sea Ship Observer Mission in 2025 to improve interoperability among the member countries' coast guards.

Biden’s departure

The summit was also seen as a farewell for two leaders: US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will retire. This will leave Narendra Modi and his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese to continue the activity with a new American president and a new Japanese prime minister.

The departure of Biden has given rise to speculation about Quad’s future. However, Biden maintained that “challenges will come, the world will change, but the Quad is here to stay.”

India and Quad

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said “We are meeting at a time when the world is surrounded by conflicts and tension. At such a time, it is important for all of humanity that the members of Quad move forward based on democratic values.”

Modi clarified, “We are not against anybody. All of us support rules-based international order, respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, and peaceful resolution of all disputes.” He stressed on “a free, open, inclusive and prosperous Indo-Pacific”.

Some describe it as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue but the official documents refer to it only as Quad.

India is not a treaty ally of the US (meaning neither country is obliged to come to each other’s support in the event one is attacked by a third country) and this may be a reason why the security aspect is diluted.

India pursues a foreign policy independent of the US to safeguard its own security interest and strategic autonomy. It has maintained relations with Russia and bought sophisticated arms from it despite the US sanctions on Moscow for the Ukraine invasion.

India also has an agreement with Iran —another country under American sanctions, on the Chabahar port.

Engaging with China

Though India has been engaged in a military standoff with China at the border since May 2020 and takes part in regular military and naval exercises with Quad, it has been reluctant to go to the South China Sea during such drills.

India also holds talks with China at the diplomatic and military levels to resolve the border crisis and engages with it at other forums.

Indian foreign minister S. Jaishankar has asked Western experts not to draw an analogy between an Asian NATO and Quad.

“It isn’t, because there are three countries who are treaty allies. We are not a treaty ally,” he said. He added, “It’s a kind of 21st-century way of responding to a more diversified, dispersed world.”

Though Quad members will collectively and individually engage with China to change its aggressive behaviour, the stress is now on areas that can bring benefit to countries in the Indo-Pacific on a wide-range of areas, especially health and capacity-building.

Inclusive initiatives

Modi said, “We have together taken several positive and inclusive initiatives in areas such as health security, critical and emerging technologies, climate change and capacity building.”

Quad launched the Quad Cancer Moonshot, a collective effort to leverage public and private resources to reduce the number of lives lost to cancer in the Indo-Pacific, with an initial focus on cervical cancer.

The leaders said the Quad Cancer Moonshot is projected to save hundreds of thousands of lives over the coming decades.

Anti-China rhetoric

But beyond the anti-Chinese rhetoric, no viable deterrence that could prevent China’s aggressive claims and force Beijing to adopt a more conciliatory approach in resolving disputes with the neighbours were announced at the summit.

China on Wednesday test-launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), carrying a simulated warhead, into the Pacific Ocean that could threaten the US, Taiwan and Japan.

This was the first such test since the 1980s and came soon after the Quad summit. Some observers say there is an inherent weakness in Quad.

Two factors explain why Quad, despite having the region’s most powerful navy, choses to scale down the security component from its agenda.

Chinese experts say most Quad members maintain relations with both the US but also with China for different reasons and were not in favour of sacrificing one to save the other.

Divisive pattern

Li Haidong, a professor at the China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times, “Although India, Japan and Australia have strategic integration points with the US, they also have economic integration points with China.”

Li added, “Such a divisive pattern will be difficult to change for a long time, which means that the US attempt to promote division and confrontation in the Asia-Pacific through Quad faces uncertainties."

Some experts say it will be apt to see Quad as a consultative grouping that seeks to shape the Indo-Pacific in a manner that is favourable to its members at a time when China is striving for regional dominance.

Escalating tension

The Quad formed in 2007 in the aftermath of the tsunami to deal collectively with future challenges of natural disasters and rescue and rehabilitate people stranded in the region, was revived in 2017 at a time when China’s aggressive rise in the Indo-Pacific was a bother for most countries.

In 2021, Quad was transformed into a summit-level grouping compared to the assistant secretary level of their first meeting since 2007.

Biden said China continues to “behave aggressively, testing us all across the region on several fronts, including on economic and technology issues”.

Because of the rising tension over Taiwan and other disputes in the region, many Quad members in recent years have stepped up their defence.

Avoiding conflict

However, the general consensus is to avoid a conflict in the Indo-Pacific as it may have a devastating impact in a region that has 60% of the world’s population and most of the important economies in the globe.

A war in the Indo-Pacific will have a cascading effect with implications that can be felt much wider beyond the region and spark off a global and political crisis.

Therefore, despite the anti-China rhetoric outgoing American President also added a word of prudence, “We believe intense competition requires intense diplomacy.”