With the latest announcement of a leader-level digital summit to be held on March 12, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue or Quad in short, has been given its single biggest boost. Till now it has been a little more than an informal strategic forum. While it was put on ice for some time as certain members drew away from its anti-China image, the Quad has, in one way or another, continued since its first conception in 2007. Now, perhaps as a reflection of the shared challenge they face, the Quad nations have upgraded the dialogue forum into a 'framework'.
As always, official statements regarding the group's activities make no mention of China. The upcoming meeting, as the statement says, is about discussing regional and global challenges. Above all, the group has always been focused on cooperation towards maintaining a 'free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific'. Regardless of whether the statements directly mention China, it is not hard to see why the group's agenda may be interpreted as having China as its centre of focus.
Each of the four countries — India, the USA, Australia and Japan — have one thing in common beyond the regional grouping, they all have personal grievances with China. Each of the four nations has a reason to be concerned with the continued rise of China as a world power.
This is just limited to discussions of strategic military coordination, though that too plays a part. Indeed, one of the major questions the group faces is addressing the vital role of China in global supply chains. Each of these four countries has realised just how vital China is to their own supply chain. This is a significant vulnerability that can compromise a nation's ability to counter unconventional threats. This is especially true in regards to China's near-monopoly of rare earth metals which are vital components to a host of modern technologies ranging from smartphones to new fifth-generation fighter planes. Australia is the second-largest producer of such metals and while it currently lags far behind China in mining output, there is room for expansion and foreign investment.
This is why all four world powers of the Quad, India included, are seeking regional FTAs (free trade agreements) to start diversifying their trade and supply chains.
More traditional security concerns have also been raised for discussion in the upcoming summit. In a recent discussion with PM Modi, Japanese PM Suga expressed his alarm over Beijing's new coast guard law that allows China's coast guard ships to open fire on foreign ships in areas considered as disputed waters. The law broadly gives the Chinese coast guard consent to address foreign presence in areas that fall in China's claimed waters. Many of China's neighbours in the South-China Sea region have already expressed considerable concern over just how escalation-prone the new rule makes the region.
With the upcoming summit, there has also been an announcement by Australian PM Morrison that such summits are now going to be 'regular' and that they will be a 'feature of Indo-Pacific engagement'. How exactly this plays out remains to be seen but there is little doubt that the group has formalised around the acknowledged need to keep Chinese ambitions under check. But there are other non-China specific things on the agenda for the body as well. One of the most critical discussion points in the upcoming meeting is the finance to boost vaccine production in India. While this is obviously in the interest of eliminating the overall threat faced by the pandemic and the possibility of mutations, this is also a very significant effort in countering China's own vaccine diplomacy efforts across the world. As a major producer of low-cost but reliable vaccines and medicines, India has the capacity to continue scaling its production to match China.
For India, the Quad could become particularly significant because India has largely stuck to a neutral standpoint in multilateral engagements regardless of its tensions with its rivals. The expansion of the Quad may be an indication that India realises that gaining cooperation from like-minded allies could help shore up its capabilities.
Of course, in closing, it is important to mention that China is not without its own allies. Russia, in particular, has been highly critical of the Quad and sees it as a tool of American domination and has particularly spoken out against India's involvement in the group. It remains of interest to see how India's relationship with Russia will turn out as it increases its participation in the Quad grouping.