No, Quad hasn’t lost its relevance; India is forcing it to become more broad-based and that’s a good thing

Never a dull moment in geopolitics. Following Indian external affairs minister S Jaishankar’s two quick meetings with Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi, the last of which was held in Astana on the sidelines of the SCO Summit, assumptions of an India-China détente have started  emerging that “some sort” of a compact has been reached between the two sides over withdrawing soldiers from the border.

Along with the conjecture, which lacks any real evidence, fresh speculation is sprouting on the relevance and future of Quad – the quadrilateral grouping of four Indo-Pacific democracies: India, Japan, Australia and the US. Old charges of India being the “ weakest link ” are being levelled again with questions being raised over New Delhi’s reliability and intention in ‘diluting’ the framework with an ‘expansive’ agenda. Jokes are floating that Quad may end up as the “Asian UN”.

In this piece, I shall tackle the questions whether India is wavering on the Quad, if at all there is an underlying motivation for India to waver, and if the framework has lost its relevance as it evolves. Since these questions are closely tied to and have a bearing on the state of India-China bilateral ties, it is worth inspecting the current status of the relationship.

It seems a cleverly worded Chinese readout following Jaishankar-Wang meeting may be behind the speculation that India-China ties are perhaps on the mend. The debate intensified following a prescription from the latest pre-budget Economic Survey that India should look to increasing FDI from China to lower trade deficit, integrate better with the global supply chain and drive-up exports.

The chief economic advisor’s (CEA) proposal has since found backing from noted economists  and policy wonks who argue that a “nuanced discussion” on this issue is essential. As economist and Niti Ayog member Arvind Virmani says, if the trade-off is either more imports from China or FDI, we should allow more Chinese firms to invest in India. New Delhi’s current policy subjects investments from Chinese companies to intense scrutiny and mandatory approval.

Regardless of the CEA’s suggestion and the academic debate, this is a political decision. There is no indication that India is on the verge of rethinking Chinese investments. Union commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal recently scotched all speculation by clarifying in the Parliament that the government is not obligated to implement the recommendation of the CEA and by stressing that the Centre has no plans to change the stance on FDI from China.

As trade deficit with China rockets to $85 billion, the government, under fire from the Opposition for failing to stem the flow of Chinese imports across eight major industrial sectors, pointed out that imports from China have reduced under the NDA government compared to the UPA regime. Goyal justified India’s decision to back out of the RCEP trade deal by saying, “We would have been a nation of salesmen hawking Chinese goods.”

The minister’s comments and his exchange of barbs with the Opposition reflect a political consensus in India against further economic integration with China, even if it makes tougher India’s job to bring down the trade deficit or hitch India’s boat to the global value chain (GVC) – as East Asian economies have done. The political consensus reflects a structural reality.

The reality hinges on the fact that China’s hegemonic behaviour makes it impossible for India to coexist, grow and exert its influence in the region while avoiding a confrontation with its more powerful neighbour, unless New Delhi is prepared to forego its great power aspirations. This is illogical for a country of India’s size, scale and demography, that has the self-image of being a great power and a pole in a multipolar world with its own value system and set of interests.

India’s decision to restrict Chinese FDI, the conflict at the border or participation in frameworks such as Quad are manifestations of the structural reality.

This reality has also goaded India into boosting border infrastructure, launching defence modernization, enhancing operational preparedness, and building internal capacities with some help from external powers that share India’s anxiety on China, while carefully avoiding the trappings of formal alliances.

This is entirely in keeping with India’s great power ambitions. While New Delhi is not averse to joining minilateral or multilateral groupings that further its objective of self-strengthening, signalling and catering to its strategic needs, it remains antipathic to explicit securitization of such frameworks in a way that it approaches a formal hub-and-spoke alliance with a dominating partner calling the shots.

As Rahul Jaybhay writes in The Diplomat, “rising powers (such as India) are always ‘allergic’ to maintaining alliances. Partnerships envisioning certain preferences for the global distribution of capabilities come with costs to secondary partners as they have to adhere to the strategic template outlined by the stronger ally. Avoiding such a step of strategic entanglement, Indian efforts are primed to focus on acquiring military arms and building indigenous capacities.”

Quad is an important part of India’s balancing strategy against China but it has increasingly taken on a broader, substantive agenda that extends across multiple domains and requires deeper cooperation over several spheres of activities. The grammar of the framework is participatory, consultative and cooperative. This lends itself to much more flexibility over issues and the ability to expand the horizons. Let’s look at the  outcome document of the Quad foreign ministers’ meeting held recently in Tokyo.

Worth noting that while Leaders’ Summit has been kept at abeyance due to a busy political season in India and the US, lower-level working group meetings have kept the framework alive. The Tokyo declaration proposes collaboration in the field of critical and emerging technologies, strengthening supply chain resilience, advancing telecom technology, including 5G and O-RAN, and promotion of digital connectivity.

In light of Russia-Ukraine conflict where hybrid warfare involving cyber-attacks and crippling of civilian infrastructure have been witnessed, the Quad has committed to a more open, secure, stable, accessible and peaceful cyberspace. A Quad Cyber Bootcamp on how to protect critical infrastructure will be hosted by India in November. Quad will also enhance cybersecurity in the Indo-Pacific region, including in supply chain security and resilience of critical sectors and for the protection of critical infrastructure including secure commercial undersea cables.

This is significant, since the  Houthi rebels cut three undersea cables this year, and according to US State Department officials, undersea fiber-topic cables that ferry internet traffic are at risk of “tampering by Chinese repair ships”.

The Quad statement uses strong language to describe China’s territorial aggrandizement and bullying of neighbours. It has announced the expansion of Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA) to the Indian Ocean region and states the group’s “steadfast commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific”, “upholding the free and open rules-based international order”, and condemns the challenge posed by China to “the global maritime rules-based order”. Quad members state that they are “seriously concerned about the situation in the East and South China Seas and reiterate our strong opposition to any unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo by force or coercion.”

That said, the name of China is never taken, and the Quad also focuses on enhancing supply chains and investments, innovation in agriculture through emerging technologies, developing high-level principles for digital public infrastructure, cooperation on space, and finalization of the Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), which “enable an effective, immediate and coordinated response mechanism between Quad partners.”

There’s also a mention of counter-terrorism, cross-border terrorism, media freedom, climate action, encouraging climate information exchanges, disaster risk, resilience and capacity building.

It is evident that while China commands substantial attention from Quad, the grouping’s agenda has undergone a visible shift to take on more global responsibilities than a sharp, security-oriented focus. Its evolution from a security architecture aimed at tackling Chinese aggression to providing global public goods and economic collateral is complete. I posit that instead of diluting Quad’s agenda, this adds to the framework’s strength.

This evolution makes it difficult for China to whip up a frenzy over the premier grouping and play to the gallery of Southeast Asian nations who want to stay away from great power competition. Instead, the framework can work in the background and build structural deterrence against Chinese aggression by aiding capacity building and providing more options to regional powers.

While India is broad-basing the Quad, it is simultaneously increasing its defence, security and commercial engagement with Southeast Asian states and expanding its strategic footprint in the region to combat Beijing’s growing influence and military assertiveness. New Delhi has a very good reason to do this. Not only it must keep the channels of navigation free considering that over 55 per cent of India’s trade passes through South China Sea and Malacca Straits it must contribute towards building deterrence for its Southeast Asian partners and support the architecture of regional stability.

While the Quad expands its role from a security framework, India is boosting bilateral security engagement with East Asian neighbours who have long been at the receiving end of China’s expansionism on the South China Sea. Quad’s role therefore essentially complements India’s policy and strikes a symbiosis.

As part of its counterbalancing strategy, India is expanding its naval presence, heightening maritime security cooperation with countries along the maritime rim of Indo-Pacific and backing their sovereign rights over the contested waters of South China Sea.

As Derek Grossman notes in Foreign Policy, “India has sealed an arms deal with Vietnam, sided with the Philippines over China on sovereignty disputes in the South China Sea, and enhanced defense cooperation with Indonesia. It is balance-of-power politics worthy of an international relations textbook: Even though most Southeast Asian governments have long made it their mantra not to choose geopolitical sides, China’s aggressive posture in and around the South China Sea is driving India and its partners in the region together.”

During Vietnam prime minister Pham Minh Chinh’s recent visit to New Delhi, both countries tightened their comprehensive strategic partnership, while India announced a credit line worth $300 million to strengthen Vietnam’s maritime security. An MEA readout announced a “strengthening of defence cooperation” covering “dialogues, training and capacity building cooperation, exchange of best practices, exercises, defence policy and industry cooperation.”

Worth noting that India sent national security advisor Ajit Doval to Hanoi last month to attend the state funeral of Nguyen Phu Trong, the late General Secretary of Vietnam’s Communist Party and in June last year, India gifted an active warship to Vietnam, which has overlapping territorial claims with China over South China Sea.

Alongside, India is tightening its strategic partnership with the Philippines, holding maritime exercises and sent Manila its first batch of BrahMos missiles – part of a $375 million deal. Early this year in March, India’s foreign minister landed in Manila on an official visit and expressed India’s firm support to the Philippines “for upholding its national sovereignty” while stressing on the importance of adhering to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), drawing a sharp reaction from Beijing.

New Delhi is also firming up its security partnership with Australia, holding defence policy dialogues with Indonesia and docking a submarine in Jakarta, taking part in bilateral Samudra Shakti exercise with Indonesia, maritime Samudra Laksamana exercise with Malaysia  and maritime bilateral exercise SIMBEX with Singapore.

Multilaterally, India has increased its security engagement with ASEAN states. IISS research fellow Viraj Solanki notes that “India and ASEAN states held their inaugural maritime exercise in the South China Sea in May 2023. India is the fourth country to hold a joint exercise with ASEAN, after China, Russia and the United States. Seven ASEAN states provided naval ships: Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Brunei’s participation was notable, as India and Brunei have never held a naval exercise bilaterally.”

In taking up the responsibility of countering Chinese aggression through a latticework of plurilateral, multilateral and bilateral frameworks in the Indian Ocean region, India is exactly the kind of self-reliant partner Washington needs, and conversely it must also understand that New Delhi will never be part of a NATO-like security structure.

India’s engagement with US and its allies, by virtue of being expansive, participatory, cooperative and contributive – is more durable than a military bloc and contributes to regional stability without forcing reluctant Southeast Asian nations into making onerous choices.

Finally, the narrative over Quad’s relevance and weakening overlooks a crucial aspect. India’s approach to Quad and maritime security in Indo-Pacific shuns a binary framing in favour of a multi-pronged approach, threading a line of action through various lenses and perspectives. This multiplicity is curiously missing in western intellectual discourse. The West should get over its scepticism and ideological trappings.

[The author is Deputy Executive Editor, Firstpost. He tweets @sreemoytalukdar]