The Quadrilateral traces its origins to the great Asian tsunami of December 26, 2004. Indian ships, aircraft and helicopters were despatched within hours to render assistance to our Sri Lankan, Maldivian, and Indonesian neighbours in distress. This swift response established Indian Navy’s credentials as a credible regional force. Within a week, the navies of the US, Australia Japan and India had come together to form “Joint Task Force-536” headquartered in Utapao (Thailand). This established the framework for “quadrilateral coordination”.
Not a single Chinese ship was seen throughout the 2004 tsunami relief operations. But, China issued a demarche to India, US, Japan and Australia seeking details about their meeting — terming it a “Quadrilateral initiative”.
Recent Developments
The Quadrilateral security dialogue or Quad, which includes India, Australia, Japan and the US, was upgraded to the ministerial level last September. China has often expressed its opposition to the group, though India has said it is not aimed at any country.
In a meeting between US secretary of state Mike Pompeo, defence secretary Mark Esper and their Australian counterparts Marise Payne and Linda Reynolds in Washington on 28 July, a joint statement was issued by the two sides making several references to India’s role in the Indo-Pacific.
The US and Australia also expressed serious concerns about China’s “recent coercive and destabilising actions across the Indo-Pacific”, and the two countries said the Covid-19 pandemic has “created incentives for some actors to pursue strategic gains in ways that undermine the rules-based international order and regional stability”.
The US-Australia joint statement said the Indo-Pacific remains the focus of their alliance and that two countries are “working side-by-side, including with ASEAN, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and Five Eyes partners, to strengthen our networked structure of alliances and partnerships to maintain a region that is secure, prosperous, inclusive, and rules-based”.
On the issue of regional coordination, the two countries said they are committed to “trilateral dialogues with Japan and Quad consultations with Japan and India”, and were looking forward to further ministerial meetings of these forums.
The US and Australia also referred to bilateral defence cooperation such as the joint naval activity by their warships in the South China Sea, and said they are committed to “pursue increased and regularised maritime cooperation in the region, as well as the Indian Ocean, bilaterally and in concert with other like-minded and regional partners”.
India is the most natural partner for security-related initiatives by the US and Australia both in the Indian Ocean and the wider Indo-Pacific region.
Since the outbreak of COVID 19, there has been a recent deterioration in relations between Australia and China, and Prime Minister Scott Morrison has called for an independent international inquiry into the origin of the pandemic. China reacted by increasing tariffs on some products and threatened other forms of economic coercion. Australia’s bilateral ties with China have been deteriorating. Some politicians in Australia have recently been arguing that China poses an increasing threat to Australia, which should be properly tackled.
With Australia possibly included, the series of Malabar multi-national exercises will be an exercise comprising members of the ‘Quad’, with all of them having serious issues with China.
Quadrilateral Exercises
As a leading player in the Quad, the US has attached great importance to the region, exemplified by former president Barack Obama administration’s strategy of rebalance to the Asia-Pacific, to the Indo-Pacific Strategy of President Donald Trump.
Since 2017, the US has labelled China as a strategic rival, believing that a rising China is a threat to the US. Therefore, a possible joint military drill, whose aim includes targeting China, by all members of the Quad does not come as surprising.
The US, which plays the lead role in Quad, has become a pivot against China; exercising with the Indian Navy in the Indian Ocean and Japan and Australia in the Philippine Sea near the mouth of the South China Sea.
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Will Russia Join?
India wants Russia to join the US-led Indo-Pacific initiative as New Delhi sees it as the next logical step to boost bilateral strategic ties with Moscow and mark 20 years of their renewed partnership. New Delhi believes that if Russia joins the Indo-Pacific framework, it will no longer be seen as a grouping that is led by the US, something that Moscow has been protesting for long.
India has reportedly told Russia that just as New Delhi supports Moscow’s Greater Eurasia, it should also join hands under the rubric of Indo-Pacific, and not see this merely as the US’ divisive strategy.
India believes in order to address the challenges in a post-Covid world as countries are increasingly aligning with each other, it is “critically important” that Moscow joins the Indo-Pacific framework and make it a true grouping of “like-minded countries” that believe in freedom of navigation under a rule-based order.
Russia is also aware of Beijing’s growing aggressiveness, but it needs China for economic reasons. By joining the Indo-Pacific it will come closer to India, because India does not see Indo-Pacific as an initiative to confront China.
According to an official, despite Russia’s own growing bilateral relationship with China, Moscow did not shy away in assuring India with emergency supplies of armaments if matters deteriorated.
Quad and the BRI
The Quad grouping has met biannually since then, discussing “connectivity, sustainable development, counter-terrorism, non-proliferation and maritime and cyber security, with a view to promoting peace, stability and prosperity in an increasingly inter-connected Indo-Pacific region”. The emphasis on connectivity has seen the Quad challenge China in another sphere: a coordinated effort to provide financing and sustainable alternatives to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which has led many nations to take loans and accept infrastructure bids from Beijing.
The counter has not yet made much headway, but each of the Quad countries is coordinating their responses on infrastructure projects in their spheres of influence, including India and Australian efforts in the Pacific islands, India-U.S. coordination in South Asia and the Indian Ocean region, and India-Japan joint efforts to develop projects in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Myanmar.
Beijing’s Stand on Quad
Beijing has long opposed a coalition of democracies in the Indo-Pacific region. The Chinese leadership sees the maritime Quadrilateral as an Asian-NATO that seeks only to contain China’s rise. In mid-July, The Global Times, the Chinese communist party’s mouthpiece, noted that at a time of strained bilateral ties with China, India’s intention to involve Australia in the Malabar drill could only be construed as a move directed against Beijing. By “putting more pressure on China” and moving to expand its “sphere of influence into the entire Indian Ocean and the South Pacific.”
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Comments
The United States has emerged as the bulwark against China in the South China Sea and beyond, deepening partnerships with countries in Asia, Europe and Australia to secure Indo-Pacific from a bellicose China. The two exercises make it evident that India will be the principal ally to US in securing Indian Ocean Region while Japan and Australia will be key to protecting Pacific region.
In recent days, China has stepped up its naval presence in the South China Sea, even as Washington directed three aircraft carrier groups — USS Theodore Roosevelt, USS Nimitz and USS Ronald Reagan — to the region, in a seeming bid to counter the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). The U.S. would expect its Indo-Pacific partners, including India, to assist the U.S. Navy in its South China Sea endeavour.
The core issue at the centre is the international pressure on China that has been inconsistent so far. It’s not only America and Japan’s interest, the rest of the powerful nations such as India, Australia, Singapore, etc, in the Asia-Pacific must chalk out joint strategies to counter any Chinese expansionist moves across the international sea lines of communication.
Beijing cavorts with most repressive regimes in the world like North Korea, Pakistan and lately Iran. It is this unchallenged belief that China today runs roughshod over most of the countries in the world, either through money or muscle power.
It is essential for India’s strategic-planners and policymakers to retain clarity about the reason India has become a partner that is sought after by the US and others. While India’s status as a nuclear-weapon state and major land/air power, as well as a growing economy and attractive market, has been known for some time, New Delhi’s newfound allure for the US, the Quad and ASEAN is rooted only in its ability to project power and influence in distant ocean reaches.
India must muster all elements of its “comprehensive national power”, including the maritime, and create a strong negotiating position. Keeping tensions confined to the Himalayan arena is, therefore, not only militarily advantageous to China but a continental focus also helps to keep India contained in a “South-Asia box”.
The time for ambivalence is over and while India will have to fight its own territorial battles with determination, this is the moment to seek external balancing. A formal revival and re-invigoration of the Quad is called for. It is also time to seek an enlargement of this grouping into a partnership of the like-minded. Other nations feeling the brunt of Chinese brawn may be willing to join an “Indo-Pacific concord” to maintain peace and tranquillity and to ensure observance of the UN Law of the Seas.
Cooperation with the U.S. and Japan without attendant benefits of strategic technology transfers will not improve the Indian Navy’s deterrence potential in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). There is every possibility that the military-Quad will be used to draw India into the security dynamics of the Asia-Pacific.
India is the only country in the Quad that shares a land boundary with China, and the militarisation of the Quad will not help India deal with that threat. Unlike the U.S., Japan and Australia, which are tied by military alliances, India is a member of other strategic forums, such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation with China, Russia and Central Asia, BRICS and RIC, which appear to be at cross purposes with a Quad alliance.
Eventually, the question over the next step in the Quad — whether India invites Australia to the next Malabar exercises or not — will be secondary to how India develops its own strategic vision, especially given the stand-off with China.
