By P.K.Balachandran/Sunday Observer
Colombo, February 27: The QUAD, an association of the US, Japan, Australia and India, is essentially meant to stem China’s growing influence in the Indo-Pacific region – influence which is seen by QUAD members as being pushed by money power backed by military muscle.
Thus, at the core, QUAD is a security alliance. It is meant to push the geopolitical interests of its members vis-à-vis an increasingly aggressive China under President Xi Jinping. And QUAD makes no bones about the fact that its aim is “to secure the freedom of navigation and a rule-based order”.
But to the countries of the Indo-Pacific region this objective smacks of a militaristic stance against China. Therefore, there has been a reluctance to go along with the security objective. The reason is that the countries in this region have seen devastating wars waged in their midst by powerful countries from the colonial to recent times.
Even India, which is a member of the QUAD, is extremely wary of military alliances and enters into security arrangements with major powers with the utmost caution. This is so even when it seeks security cooperation with the US in a bid to contain China, which is threatening it on its borders.
Rebranding of QUAD
Given such sensitivities and inhibitions, QUAD is redesigning or rebranding itself with more and more stress on economic development schemes to meet the felt needs of the countries in the region.
On February 16, the US House of Representatives passed the “Quad Bill” which instructs the Biden Administration to establish a Quad Intra-Parliamentary Working Group to facilitate closer cooperation between the US, Australia, India and Japan on the following matters: (1) preparing for the next pandemic, (2) co-developing new innovative technologies, and (3) deepening economic engagement and integration.
Introduced by Congressman Gregory Meeks, the Bill requires the State Department to report to Congress a strategy for bolstering engagement and cooperation with the QUAD.
On February 24, the Indian External Affairs Minister S.Jaishankar explained to the “QUAD Think Tank Forum” in New Delhi, what QUAD is meant to do. In essence, he said that QUAD is meant to sustain democracies through developmental schemes in a challenging security environment. Significantly, he did not even once mention China, not even to its “debt trap” development schemes for the Global South under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
According to Jaishankar QUAD had its origin in international disaster response and management. It goes back to the international response to the Tsunami of December 2004. In 2006 the idea of QUAD was proposed by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. A decade later, in 2017, there was a meeting at the Foreign Secretaries level. In 2019, this was upgraded to the Ministerial level, and further upgraded to the Summit level in 2021.
India’s Critical Role
Jaishankar said that India had a critical role in the “flowering” of QUAD. There had been “remarkable changes” in India’s bilateral relationships with its QUAD partners, which made QUAD what it turned out to be.
Expanding on this he said: “With the US, we put behind ideological hesitations of history. With Japan, we gave a longstanding goodwill much more practical shape. And with Australia, we actually made a real beginning in seriousness.”
Jaishankar said that QUAD “is propelled by a change in the global order that requires more, not less, collaboration among the like-minded.” What he left unsaid was that the “like minded” are democracies like the US, Japan, Australia and India which are battling the mind set of authoritarian China.
Five Messages
According to the Indian External Affairs Minister, QUAD sends out five messages: (1) It reflects the growth of a multi-polar order (2) It reflects a post-alliance and post-cold war thinking. (3) It is against spheres of influence. (4) It expresses the democratizing of the global space and the emergence of a collaborative, not unilateral, approach. (5) It is a statement that in this day and age, others cannot have a veto on our choices.
In other words, QUAD has a liberating influence on the old world order.
QUAD has expanded its activities rapidly, because all four member governments have behaved differently from how they normally bureaucracies do, Jaishankar pointed out. “QUAD is an overhead light, creative, flexible, nimble, responsive and an open-minded enterprise.”
Achievements of QUAD
Listing its goals and achievements, Jaishankar said that QUAD focusses on addressing the region’s most pressing needs and challenges. And these needs and challenges are: infrastructure and connectivity, Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Response, critical technologies, communications, space cooperation, cyber security, counter-terrorism, maritime security, Fellowships for study, and climate action.
“The really notable aspect of this is that at every meeting, we have actually taken agreed domains forward and have come up with new ones for cooperation,” he asserted.
“ In critical technologies, QUAD seeks to build resilient supply chains in telecom, cyber security, semiconductors and AI. An Open Radio Access Network (RAN) is underway in Palau in the Pacific, as part of these efforts. We are also promoting cyber awareness and capacity building in the Indo-Pacific, which could be, and which is, vulnerable to cyber threats,” Jaishankar said.
1800 Infrastructure Fellowships
The QUAD countries have together announced more than 1800 “Infrastructure Fellowships” for policy makers and technical experts to familiarise them with infrastructure projects and their implementation.
“By pooling together our technical expertise, we are actually enhancing the ability of the Indo-Pacific countries to select smart and reliable options. We have also commenced discussions about deploying digital public infrastructure to deliver public goods in the Indo-Pacific,” Jaishankar said.
A unique QUAD initiative has been the “Science, Technlogy, Engineering and Maths (STEM) Fellowship program”, under which about a 100 scholars from the four countries have enrolled in courses in US universities.
More Stakeholders
Yet another priority in recent years has been to broaden the number of stakeholders involved in collaborating with QUAD. These are both governments and private sector institutions.
“While QUAD has been driven by respective governments, if we are to make our work impactful and ensure really tangible outcomes, we need to work closely with the industry, with R&D and innovation ecosystems, and with the academia,” Jaishankar said.
The private sector-led “QUAD Investor Network” was launched recently with the objective of facilitating business collaborations in critical technologies, renewable energy, climate mitigation, healthcare and other domains.
“These partnerships are critical for developing commercially viable and trusted alternatives which would build and diversify current supply chains,” the Indian Foreign Minister said.
Economic Framework
QUAD has given birth to some larger collaborations that serve the same objectives of global good. One is the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), which seeks to offer alternative economic engagement mechanisms.
“This is making steady progress and addressing issues like supply chains, clean economies, sustainability, and digital economies amongst others. India and 13 other countries are negotiating the text of agreements under IPEF,” Jaishankar said.
Maritime Security
Then there is the Indo-Pacific Maritime Domain Awareness Initiative (MDAI), under which data is being supplied for countering illicit maritime activities and responding to climate-related and humanitarian events.
“We have also seen this translate to enhanced outreach and engagement with countries of the region, to provide more assistance and improve capabilities of the Indo-Pacific countries,” Jaishankar said.
Further, “Many like-minded partners have visibly increased their presence in the Indo-Pacific, through more diplomatic missions, trade, investments, and sometimes visits of their naval assets.”
The “Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative” was launched by India in 2019. Its QUAD partners and a number of others have joined in leading or co-leading the eight pillars of this initiative.
Inclusive of ASEAN
Jaishankar corrected the impression that QUAD has diluted the centrality of ASEAN in the East Asian region.
“I think anybody who doubts ASEAN centrality, when they look at the map of the Indo-Pacific, clearly missed their geography classes at school. And not just the geography class, I think they have probably passed up on all that has been happening in terms of the East Asia Summit process and how that today, is actually a very unique and I would say irreplaceable architecture for this part of the world.”
His parting words were: “QUAD here to stay, to grow and to contribute.”
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