Writing in The Hill, Husain Haqqani and Aparna Pande of Hudson Institute argue that the West Asia Quad, a grouping of India, Israel, the UAE and the United States that was launched in October last year has made greater progress than the more illustrious Indo-Pacific Quad despite a lot less fanfare. Citing the tectonic geopolitical shifts in West Asia such as the Abraham Accords, they point to the increasing closeness between members of the grouping and “multiple cooperative arrangements” as proofs of success. For instance, the authors cite the UAE-India free trade agreement, the fact that the UAE is already one of India’s top trading partners and stress that “unlike the Indo-Pacific Quad, which avoids hard security questions, the West Asian partnership embraces a realistic assessment of shared threats.”
It is an interesting take. The evolution of West Asia ‘Quad’ is worth noting. However, one isn’t sure of the core assessment. If anything, the Indo-Pacific grouping that was resurrected in 2017 has fallen prey to the hype around its own success. It is now burdened with unrealistic expectations.
The leaders’ summit in Tokyo was the second time since September 2021 that the heads of state have met in person and fourth time overall in just over a year. Despite leadership changes since its resurrection in Washington, Tokyo and Canberra, it has not been doing too badly. In fact, new Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese of Labor Party — considered closer to China than the ousted Liberals — took oath and flew straight to Tokyo, signalling continuity over change. It could be argued that the Ukraine war has revealed Quad’s internal differences — with India’s position at variance with other members — but the real story is the commitment to convergence despite differences that persist.
Beneath the very public meeting of leaders, there is an increasingly intense yet less publicised latticework of ministers, diplomats, bureaucrats, working groups, intelligence and cybersecurity officials and other senior staff meetings, coordinating, and cooperating with each other to push the boundaries of a collaborative effort for an ever-expanding agenda.
This expansive networking and accelerated cooperation are built on the foundation of tightening bilateral alliances and partnerships. Japan and Australia are American treaty allies. While in Tokyo, Biden hinted at, again, a change in US policy of strategic ambiguity over Taiwan that would have gladdened Japan. The US has struck a deal to help Australia acquire nuclear-powered submarines. India and Australia are rapidly deepening their security cooperation and have recently signed a free-trade agreement. The US has surpassed China as India’s biggest trading partner in 2021-22.
The net result of these deepening partnerships is Quad’s increasingly broadening agenda. The flexible, cooperative framework of democratic polities is predicated on Indo-Pacific, but it reflects the integration of theatres that provide the bulwark for greater interdependence of the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
This integration lies not just in the domains of economy and commerce for nations that span these two vast geographies but spreads across vaccines and pandemic mitigation, connectivity, infrastructure, climate change, cybersecurity, critical and emerging technologies, maritime domain awareness, humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, human resources and space.
Amid these converging interests, the Quad sees itself as a “force for good, committed to bringing tangible benefits to the region”. It seeks to draw the nations in a deeper political and security relationship but one that is underwritten by the “principles of freedom, rule of law, democratic values, sovereignty and territorial integrity, peaceful settlement of disputes without resorting to threat or use of force, any unilateral attempt to change the status quo, and freedom of navigation and overflight, all of which are essential to the peace, stability and prosperity of the Indo-Pacific region and to the world,” as the Tokyo joint statement pointed out.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Australia’s PM Anthony Albanese and US President Joe Biden at Quad Summit, in Tokyo. ANI
Theoretically, focusing on non-security goals in a region which is averse to big power competition is a good policy. Yet it is exactly here that the grouping suffers from an inherent dichotomy. While the Quad strives hard to break free of the ‘Cold War constructs’ and chooses not to define itself as a framework for containment, focusing painstakingly on a “positive and practical agenda”, it is confronted with an aspiring superpower in China that wants to retool the rules-based regional order with a ‘might-makes-right‘ approach and marginalise the influence of the US and its allies in Asia.
In this context, the Quad is perceived primarily as a rule-keeper and a shaper of China’s behaviour. And in this role, as Dhruva Jaishankar of ORF America and Tanvi Madan of Brookings Institution argue in Foreign Affairs, “despite the real progress the Quad has made on issues including technology, health, cybersecurity, and climate change, it must do more to deliver on its core security goals.”
And there is every indication that the Quad, which doesn’t want to be explicit, is slowly but surely developing a more robust security agenda. The joint statement doesn’t name China but resolves “to uphold the international rules-based order where countries are free from all forms of military, economic and political coercion”, and is quite categorical in stating that “we strongly oppose any coercive, provocative or unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo and increase tensions in the area, such as the militarization of disputed features, the dangerous use of coast guard vessels and maritime militia, and efforts to disrupt other countries’ offshore resource exploitation activities.”
Given China’s blatant militarization of artificial islands in the South China Sea and well-known use of civilian fishing vessels as de facto maritime militia, the statement leaves little to the imagination.
To be clear, the Quad is not an Asian NATO and it won’t evolve as a hub-and-spoke security alliance predicated on security pledges. However, the flexibility of the grouping has allowed it to traverse the grey space between a casual framework and a formal coalition. This lack of institutional structure is deliberate. For instance, China perceives the Quad as a grouping that is deleterious to its interests, but so far it has been unable to formulate a policy around it. The newly launched ‘Global Security Initiative‘ is aimed at solving that problem, but it is yet to firm up. China is also grappling with the India conundrum. New Delhi is a strategic partner of the US, not a treaty ally. India pursues an independent foreign policy that sometimes does not align with America’s strategic objectives. So, Beijing oscillates between wooing India and threatening it with dire consequences.
This ambiguity has allowed the Quad to gradually firm up its security toolkit. Australia has been incorporated into the annual Malabar naval exercises since 2020 that initially started as a bilateral between India and the US. Japan was added as a permanent member in 2015. The maritime exercises that are aimed at improving interoperability and trust between four nations that have anti-submarine warfare systems, now regularly involve war-gaming with non-Quad countries such as France, Canada to diversify security partnerships.
Quad members also conduct complex naval drills with other countries in a bilateral or trilateral format such as India’s maiden tri-service exercise last year with the UK or Japan’s joint military drill with the US and France.
In addition, as a paper prepared by the US Congressional Research Service (CRS) points out, along with Malabar, “Quad countries are increasing bilateral, trilateral, and multilateral exercises with one another that may accelerate the ability of the four countries to build integrated capabilities,” such as India-Australia biennial AUSINDEX naval exercise, the Japan-India JIMEX exercise and many more.
The Quad isn’t only about naval drills. As Jaishankar and Madan point out in their Foreign Affairs article mentioned above, “the four countries now have a dizzying array of bilateral security arrangements and engagements with one another. These include annual leaders’ meetings; so-called 2+2 dialogues involving foreign and defense ministers; military staff talks; military exercises involving ground, air, and maritime forces; logistics sharing agreements; liaisons; intelligence sharing; and dialogues on maritime security…” and so on.
The Tokyo summit last month unveiled an initiative based on satellite technology to help Indo-Pacific countries monitor the seaways, track illegal fishing in their exclusive economic zones and contain maritime militias — both signature Chinese moves. Called the Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) initiative, this move to boost maritime capabilities of nations in the Pacific Islands, Indian Ocean Region and Southeast Asia has been added to the Quad’s core agendas.
Former US national security official Lisa Curtis writes in CNAS that the MDA initiative “demonstrates that the Quad will not shy away from actions to assert its vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific and could move toward a more security-focused agenda, if the need arises.”
However, the flipside of Quad’s intensifying security posture is that the grouping risks alienating the very region that it seeks to befriend, reassure and bring “tangible benefits” to, since nations in Southeast Asia, IOR or Pacific Islands enjoy critical economic entrenchment with China and are deeply worried of being subjected to great power competition.
A 2021 survey involving elites from 10 ASEAN member states finds that China remains overwhelmingly the most influential power in (76.3 per cent) Southeast Asia, and one of ASEAN’s top concerns (69.1 per cent) is “becoming an arena and proxies of major power competition”.
A glance into the economic linkages show that “since 2009, China is ASEAN’s largest trading partner. During the pandemic, the grouping became China’s largest partner. In 2021, trade grew by 48 per cent in the first six months,” writes former Indian ambassador Gurjit Singh in ORF. This allows China the leeway to stoke ASEAN’s fears about the US and great power competition.
We must see India’s external affairs minister’s column in The Hindustan Times, written a day after the Quad leaders met in Tokyo, in this context. S Jaishankar collates Quad’s achievements, future plans, points towards its broad-based agenda and seeks to dispel the notion that it is a containment tool aimed at another country (China). He addresses the anxieties of the nations in Indo-Pacific when he writes, “some critics of Quad have deliberately sought to evoke the imagery of the Cold War. Nothing could be further from the truth,” points to the Quad’s “larger vision of shaping the region and the world, which impels its evolution” and forcefully defends naval exercises. “The Malabar Naval Exercise is often cited as its prominent activity. But this uni-dimensional projection does injustice to a group that makes a serious contribution to global welfare.”
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Jaishankar’s emphasis on Quad’s non-security role comes alongside the group’s proclamation in the joint statement that the Quad will “further strengthen our cooperation with Pacific island countries, to enhance their economic well being, strengthen health infrastructure and environmental resilience, to improve their maritime security and sustain their fisheries, to provide sustainable infrastructure, to bolster educational opportunities, and to mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change, which pose especially serious challenges for this region. We are committed to working together to address the needs of Pacific island partners…”
To understand the full picture and get a measure of what the Quad is up against, we need to take a look at what China is doing in the region. Since May 26, China’s foreign minister Wang Yi is on a 10-day tour with a 20-strong delegation covering the Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and East Timor to try and close a sweeping trade and security deal with the Pacific Island nations.
A draft document of the China-Pacific Island Countries Common Development Vision was leaked ahead of Wang Yi’s Pacific Islands tour that gives us a glimpse of China’s ambitions and strategic intent in the Pacific Islands region.
The deal, audacious in breadth and scope, covered a wide range of issues from police training, cybersecurity, trade, fisheries and a host of programs to develop China’s cultural ties, “strengthen exchanges and cooperation in the fields of traditional and non-traditional security” and hew the region — considered as Australia’s ‘backyard’ — close to Beijing.
The draft, reports Reuters, “also pledges cooperation on data networks, cyber security, smart customs systems, and for Pacific islands to ‘take a balanced approach’ on technological progress, economic development and national security.”
Anna Powles of Massey University in New Zealand points out in The Guardian that China is trying to “comprehensively align economic cooperation with security cooperation” in the Pacific, seeking “access to the Pacific’s maritime domain, including increasing China’s access for commercial fishing”, and the deal represents “an evolution” in China’s diplomatic engagement with the Pacific, “shifting from Beijing’s preferred bilateral mode of engagement, to multilateralism.”
The deal ultimately fell through because China tried to rush it through in a region fearful of getting sucked into a security competition between the US and its allies and China but Anglosphere’s celebrations of China’s apparent failure in stitching the agreement could well be premature.
China has already notched up several small diplomatic and strategic wins that may permanently refashion region’s power balance. It recently signed a security pact with the Solomon Islands, much to the chagrin of Australia, that may enable Beijing to eventually set up a military base in the island, though both parties deny the possibility.
Last Saturday, Wang Yi’s visit to Samoa ended with China signing a deal to strengthen diplomatic relations, “economic and technical cooperation” and construction of a police academy.
The day before on Friday, Wang had visited Kiribati, and the two nations signed 10 agreements ranging from economic and infrastructure development, cooperation on BRI, projects on climate change, disaster risk reduction, tourism, marine transportation and Covid-19 medical supplies, according to the Kiribati government.
What it tells us is that though China may have suffered an initial hiccup in not being able to get 10 Pacific Island nations to sign the sweeping trade and security agreement, it won’t jettison the deal and will be relentless in achieving its objective.
For instance, during a virtual meeting in Fiji with foreign ministers of Pacific nations, Wang Yi asked them not to be “too anxious” about the pact.
Hours after the summit, China released a 15-page “position paper” to allay the Pacific nations’ fears and bring greater clarity. According to ABC News, “the paper proposed appointing a Chinese government special envoy for Pacific Islands” and called for respecting the “independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Pacific Island countries, support Pacific Island countries in independently choosing development paths suited to their national conditions, adhere to non-interference in internal affairs”.
The ‘position paper’ further reveals that China would continue to provide “donations” to the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), expand bilateral trade, protect marine ecology and tackle climate change but, as South China Morning Post points out, the document does not mention “joint law enforcement or cybersecurity cooperation or the setting up of a free-trade area”, issues that have caused a flutter.
In short, China won’t withdraw its expansive plans of drawing the Pacific Island region closer to itself, presenting itself as a stakeholder in the region and implementing an alternative security architecture. The US worries that China — that through its fishing fleet already dominates the seas between the Pacific Islands over an “area of ocean three times as large as the continental United States” — may “add ports, airports and outposts for satellite communications” in the islands and present a security nightmare by “intercepting communications, blocking shipping lanes and engaging in space combat,” observes New York Times.
But China has taken a different approach to woo the region that believes the West has ignored its developmental aspirations. It can remain engaged and cut security and trade deals in terms and conditions that its democratic rivals, answerable to their voters at home, can’t match.
In Fiji, where tourism industry has taken a beating and GDP has shrank by 15 per cent, a Fijian tells Associated Press, “They (the Chinese) bring us bigger houses. They bring money in Fiji. They’re good people.” The Quad has responded to the Chinese challenge in two ways.
One, on the security front, it has launched the MDA initiative that offers real-time, integrated and cost-effective maritime intelligence based on a commercial satellite-based tracking service so that vulnerable nations may better monitor illegal fishing, smuggling and Chinese maritime militia’s overstepping of territorial waters.<
As Zack Cooper and Gregory Poling have pointed out in War on the Rocks, the service, which will be processed and distributed by the Quad’s existing channels, “smartly addresses several regional concerns. Illegal fishing takes away a vital source of food and income from people across the Indo-Pacific. Smuggling threatens law enforcement efforts across the region. And illicit activities by China’s maritime militia in the South China Sea undermine regional security.”
However, in a region where China is increasingly making inroads, seeks deep economic and security integration, and has burdened some nations such as Vanatu and Tonga with debts they are struggling to repay, it remains an open question whether the Pacific Island nations will choose to act on that intelligence even if it is made available.
For India, ability to cooperate on MDA is plagued by “some infrastructure constraints and continued delay in posting Indian liaison officers”, as Dinakar Peri reports in The Hindu.
Second, to counter China’s trade moves in the key Indo-Pacific subregions, the US has finally unveiled a trade initiative that seeks to plug a big gap in US Indo-Pacific policy. The Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, that has been launched with 12 Indo-Pacific nations representing 40% of world GDP, includes India as well as seven Southeast Asian nations — Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand and Brunei.
The IPEF is a rule-setting attempt in trade and digital standards and at this stage, just a platform for negotiation between the nations on four key pillars for “economic engagement in the region”, trade; supply chains; clean energy and infrastructure; and tax and anti-corruption.
The Quad nations would hope for the IPEF to counter China’s malevolent economic influence in ten region and US officials such as commerce secretary Gina Raimondo has said IPEF was an “important turning point in restoring US economic leadership in the region” that would provide countries with “an alternative to China’s approach”.
However, the IPEF is not a free-trade agreement because the Biden administration in no way will risk a Congressional approval, offers no promise of the key prize — access to US market — and is therefore in no position to replace or throw a challenge to the 11-nation CPTPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) or the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). While China is part of the latter, India and the US are absent from both regional multilateral trade frameworks.
Though the IPEF seems to be a step in the right direction, it is still at too nascent a stage to be touted as anything concrete. Much will depend on the nature of the negotiations that are due to start. Besides, as The Economist points out, “The durability of the IPEF is also in doubt. Were Donald Trump to return to the Oval Office in 2024, he would not need three days to ditch the framework.”
Where does that leave the Quad? Its two signature moves revealed during the Tokyo summit has its drawbacks and in China, it is faced with a formidable opponent that has the breadth, vision, and capability to offer an alternative security and economic framework for a region that doesn’t want to choose between two sides or become a part of regional power competition.
However, as Susannah Patton writes for Lowy Institute, “the Quad’s most important success is the simple fact of its existence: it helps keep its members on the same page when it comes to challenges in the Indo-Pacific… (its) mere existence tells China that it will not have things its own way all the time.
The key for Quad, therefore, is to strike the right balance between security and non-security functions, focus on deliverables and capitalise on the mistakes that China commits and is likely to commit in forcing the region to bend to its imperial will.
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