India and Quad: A tale of collaboration
The upcoming summit will reinforce the awareness of Delhi’s strategic options as it deals with its challenges and seeks to maximise its opportunities
The Quad summit to be held on September 21 in United States (US) president Joe Biden’s hometown, Wilmington (Delaware), will be the sixth since the meetings at this level were initiated in March 2021 by the Biden administration, within months of taking over in January that year. Including the upcoming one, Biden would have hosted four when he leaves office — there were two virtual meetings, in March 2021 and 2022, and the first-ever in-person Quad summit in September 2021. Two intervening summit meetings were hosted by Japan (May 2022) and Australia (May 2023). It will be India’s turn to host in 2025. The new US president and the incoming team will have to focus on a visit to India early in the term and explore additional deliverables and outcomes for the visit, providing continuity as the transition from the Biden administration takes place.
Biden hosting four summits is an attestation of the importance attached by the US to this framework for cooperation and coordination. It has also worked to India’s advantage. The US is now more willing to partner with India in terms of technology. The two countries launched the pathbreaking Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET) in January 2023, which provides for cooperation in Artificial Intelligence (AI), quantum, biotechnology, semiconductors, space, and defence, among others. It has provided a cushion to handle disagreements on issues such as the Russia-Ukraine conflict. There was a proposal in the US Senate that India should be exempt from sanctions under the Countering American Adversaries through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) for major defence and other purchases from Russia because it is a member of Quad.
The significance and achievements of Quad today can be better understood if we recall the context in which it was first conceived, and the challenges it experienced. It had first come together in response to the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean and aimed at coordinating humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) response by the four navies of the US, Japan, Australia, and India that had displayed capacity on the occasion. A meeting of Quad officials took place on the margins of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum in the Philippines in 2007. Thereafter, it languished in the face of the sensitivity of some members, including Australia, to perceived opposition from China, with which they had strong trade and economic linkages. It was revived by the Donald Trump administration, which had made a pushback against China’s predatory economic and trade policies and its unilateral assertiveness in the East and South China Seas and elsewhere, a major plank of its presidential campaign and subsequent policy. A meeting of officials of the revived Quad took place in 2017 on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit. After several meetings at this level, it was raised to foreign minister-level meetings in September 2019. Members have now met eight times at this level, twice in the Trump administration and six times since 2021.
It should be recognised that Quad is one of several frameworks of cooperation that US is involved with in the Indo-Pacific. It has treaty relationships with Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, and the Philippines. It launched AUKUS with Australia and the United Kingdom in 2021, to provide Australia with capacity for nuclear propulsion conventionally armed submarines, and high-level defence technologies. It has also initiated a quadrilateral arrangement with the Philippines, Japan and Australia, focusing more on security responses to China’s actions in the East and South China Seas.
Quad, however, has its own significance. It has enabled the US to explore plurilateral convergences with India beyond the strengths of the bilateral relationship. From the Indian perspective, it has catalysed greater willingness in the US to do more with India bilaterally. Beyond the iCET, the US has now authorised technology transfer to India of GE F414 jet engines, which had been difficult earlier. Japan and Australia are also willing to do more with India bilaterally, because of Quad and the enhanced US willingness.
In addition to strengthening their relationships, Quad countries need to show positive benefits to other countries in the region flowing from the partnership. Otherwise, they would look at the Quad with scepticism, including because of negative Chinese reactions. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called the Quad a force for global good. Among the Quad steps have been sharing vaccines during the Covid-19 pandemic, providing space-based maritime domain awareness data to Pacific Island countries to deal with climate, disaster forecasting, and illegal fishing, an Open RAN pilot in Palau, providing STEM fellowships, working on improving connectivity in the region. Measures have included practical cooperation on climate action, climate finance and technology transfer to countries to meet their climate commitments, addressing challenges of unsustainable debt financing. A Quad ASEAN Working Group has been established, and support for ASEAN centrality, and ASEAN-led regional architecture has been reiterated.
But they will be judged most by the benefits they bring to each other and their strategic interests. Six leader-level working groups have been set up on climate, critical and emerging technologies, cyber, health security, infrastructure, and space. They have reiterated calls for an open, secure, free and inclusive Indo-Pacific that is prosperous and resilient, and upholding the principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity and peaceful resolution of disputes. They have consulted on issues of maritime security, counter- terrorism, proliferation threats in Asia, resilience of supply chains including of critical minerals.
The relevance of Quad is also signified by the fact that subsequently, the ASEAN, the European Union, and several European countries have developed their own strategies and outlooks for the Indo-Pacific.
In the intense global contestation playing out between the US, Russia, and China, India has sought to maintain its strategic autonomy by making an effort to sustain the relationship with Russia and deepen the partnership with the US and its partners, and strengthen itself economically, technologically and in the defence domain through these choices. PM Modi is expected to participate in the BRICS summit being hosted in Russia in October. The Quad summit in September will reinforce the awareness of India’s strategic options as it deals with its challenges and seeks to maximise its opportunities.
Arun K Singh is a former Indian ambassador to the United States. The views expressed are personal