Among a plethora of minilaterals – the products of the 21st century – the Quad comprising the U.S., India, Japan, and Australia commands huge attention. It is a unique platform of cooperation between the U.S., its two treaty allies, and a strategic partner. Its veiled but well-known resoluteness to counter and constrain China’s aggressiveness in the Indo-Pacific region fascinates media, diplomats and scholars alike. Hence, the outcome of the meeting of the Quad foreign ministers, held in Tokyo on 29 July 2024, merits a critical analysis. What has it achieved, and what is significant about it?
Since September 2019, the Quad foreign ministers have held at least seven meetings. The Tokyo meeting was the eighth in the series. Since March 2021, five summits of the highest political leaders have been held. The joint statement issued at the Tokyo meeting indicates that the next summit may be hosted by India “later this year” and the foreign ministers will meet again in 2025.
In the second decade of the 21st century, the Indo-Pacific region progressively gained prominence as the economic power and strategic weight of Asia grew at the expense of the Atlantic region and as China’s rise became less peaceful and more coercive. Leading democracies of the region began to enhance their cooperation for agreed goals. The Quad, born earlier and then shelved, picked up steam during the Trump administration. The bloody clash on the India-China border in June 2020 drew New Delhi closer to the three partners. The credit for making the Quad a stronger and more strategic platform should go to the Biden administration as it hosted two summits, one online in March 2021 and the other in-person in September 2021. They crafted a clear path towards a common endeavour to make the Indo-Pacific a free, open, peaceful, and prosperous region.
Yet, ironically enough, the Biden administration’s handling of the two wars in Ukraine and Gaza has resulted in the diminution of the salience of the Indo-Pacific in the past two years. President Joe Biden, due to other reasons, could not find time to participate in the summit that was scheduled to take place in Sydney in March 2023. Nor could he agree to a possible summit in New Delhi in January 2024. Viewed against this backdrop, the Quad foreign ministers through their latest deliberations in Tokyo took the opportunity to review progress in the implementation of a wide-ranging agenda of cooperation as well as develop a consensual perspective on several important regional and global issues.
Their central purpose was to reaffirm the three Cs: “our commitment, our common principles and capacities to preserve and strengthen the international order for the global good,” as noted by the four ministers. They deliberated on the shared challenges and articulated their respective visions for stability and prosperity in the region and beyond so that the Quad can provide tangible benefits for all interested countries.
Right at the outset, in para 2, the joint statement defines the free and open Indo-Pacific as a region in which “no country dominates and no country is dominated”, where competition among the states is “managed responsibly”, and “each country is free from coercion in all its forms”. This is the code word for calling out China’s behaviour which is seen as threatening regional peace and stability. This becomes especially clear when assessing the Quad’s considered view on the situation in the East and South China Seas, as articulated in para 5. It reiterates the Quad’s “strong opposition to any unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo by force or coercion.”
But the problem persists. Despite a clear position taken by the Quad nations and others, China continues to create difficulties, especially for the Philippines, thus rendering diplomacy ineffective in the face of coercive action on the ground. Besides, despite the Quad’s ringing and repeated endorsements of the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), Beijing shows little urgency in finalising an enforceable Code of Conduct with the ASEAN nations. As evident from the latest ASEAN-China meeting of the foreign ministers, nothing new resulted from it, with the former reiterating their expectation of an early conclusion of the negotiations that seem to go on forever.
The Quad’s positive and practical cooperation agenda seems to have acquired more support in the past two years. Its two features are noteworthy.
First, the area of coverage is now truly region-wide, with three clear components that centre around the ASEAN, the Pacific Islands Forum, (PIF) and the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA). Second, in almost all of its working groups and initiatives such as climate, health security, maritime security, critical and emerging technologies, space, cyber, and infrastructure connectivity, steady progress has been reported.
For example, the ambit of the Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness is being expanded beyond the Pacific islands to the Indian Ocean region. Likewise, the number of infrastructure fellowships has gone up from 1,800 announced in 2023 to 2,200 now, and these will be available to all the sub-regions of the Indo-Pacific. Besides, much seems to be happening to cement cooperation in the domain of critical and emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence systems and interoperability between artificial intelligence governance frameworks.
On various regional and global issues, the Quad nations share a common perspective. But at least on three of them – Ukraine, Gaza and Myanmar, it is well known that India has marked divergences from the viewpoint of the other three. On Ukraine, the U.S.’ reactions to Prime Minister Narendra Modi‘s recent visit to Moscow were quite revealing. Yet the magic of diplomacy and sophisticated drafting in Tokyo was responsible for underscoring the commonality and finessing the differences, thereby projecting a marked solidarity among all members.
Even as the Tokyo meeting was taking place, Global Times, the mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, sought to dismiss the forum as “a typical unsuccessful security alliance.” It argued that while the Quad’s cooperative measures would be inadequate to deter China, they would make the countries of the region threatened. This is an absurd contention, besides being a false one. Every region-watcher knows that the Quad is a strategic partnership, not a security alliance.
From the prism of democracies, the Quad is not only a desirable but an essential forum. The more it riles China, the more it demonstrates its utility and value to all other nations that feel insecure by repeated violations of a rules-based order. Above all, the Quad shows integrity in its projection. It defines itself as “a partnership that is evolving and delivering outcomes” that are helpful to the region in coping with a variety of today’s challenges.
The four foreign ministers have done their bit. They now need a solid buy-in from their top leadership. The ball is specifically in the U.S. president’s court. President Biden, now free from the pressures of the U.S. presidential election schedule, might do well to find time to participate in the proposed summit in New Delhi as soon as possible. This will sharpen his legacy and impart fresh momentum to the Quad.
Rajiv Bhatia is the Distinguished Fellow for Foreign Policy Studies at Gateway House and a former ambassador.
This article was first published by WION.