India and the Quad - Growing strong

The Quad is the strategic grouping joining Australia, India, Japan, and the United States. India is now hopeful of its utility.

India and the Quad - Growing strong

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• Quad comes of age: The Quad is the strategic grouping joining Australia, India, Japan, and the United States. Since its revival in 2017 amid rising shared concerns about China, it has grown. In 2021, the Quad survived the first major change of government among its members and is set to grow as India is extremely keen on it now. US also has confirmed that it will not dump the Quad.
• US stance: The US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan praised the Quad as “a foundation upon which to build substantial American policy in the Indo-Pacific region.” The Quad group took a step forward with the first-ever Quad summit in March 2021. The four leaders agreed to begin meeting regularly in person. The Quad was building momentum since 2019, when meetings were upgraded to the ministerial level and counterterrorism exercises were added to the agenda.
• Quad plus: A Quad-Plus group of seven countries was formed to coordinate responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, the four countries held the first Quad naval exercises in ten years! At the Quad summit 2021, the group pointed to a new focus on pandemic response and vaccines, climate change, and supply chains alongside its legacy commitments to maritime security and a free and open Indo-Pacific.
• The biggest push: The most encouraging sign for the Quad is India’s change of heart. It was earlier skeptical of reviving the group, but now has become a driver of recent progress. Reason is simple: an escalating rivalry with China, and declining confidence in former friend Russia. So India is now a vocal champion of the Quad and the Indo-Pacific. India is directly confronting criticism coming from Chin and Russia too.
• Weakest link in the chain: For any multilateral group, its pace is decided by the most skeptical member. India always was the Quad’s most cautious member. The first attempt at a Quad was disbanded in 2008, when a new government in Australia, friendly with China, signaled its disinterest. But since then, so much water has flown that India experienced growing trust and comfort with the United States and the other Quad democracies, diminished ideological attachment to its previous Cold War philosophy of nonalignment, and outspoken advocacy for the Quad and Indo-Pacific.
• China pushed India: The new rifts that opened with China tipped the scales toward more open rivalry. The clashes on the Doklam plateau in 2017 and in Ladakh in 2020 were decisive. China’s aggressive behavior at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) disrupted a delicate balancing act. China has lost India strategically, in case they wanted India to play a neutral role between them and the U.S. India is now firmly with the U.S.
• Threats and more threats: The Chinese warned India that its participation in the Quad meant it had become a “negative asset” to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) groupings led by Beijing and Moscow. It warned India it risked becoming “cannon fodder”. The threats fell on deaf ears! Appeals from India’s traditional patron, Russia, to abandon the Quad and Indo-Pacific don’t hold the same sway they once did.
• India's unique geography: India’s views of the Quad are a product of its unique position on the geopolitical map: relatively vulnerable and alone on the western flank with its more powerful partners clustered safely together on the eastern flank. India is the only member of the Quad that borders China, has been invaded by China, has an active land border dispute with China, is wedged between two nuclear-armed rivals, and lacks treaty alliance commitments from the other Quad members. 

 

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