To suggest ‘Squad’ will replace Quad is silly and baseless; India is a critical part of security matrix in South China Sea

An emerging quadrilateral framework between the US, Japan, Australia and the Philippines has triggered a bizarre debate over the future of Quad. It is being claimed that ‘Quad’, the four-way grouping between India, Japan, Australia, and the US is apparently “losing its relevance” and its premier status in the regional minilateral matrix due to India’s purported “reluctance to call out China”, and its ‘unwillingness’ to prioritize the framework’s security agenda or deliver on core military goals.

We are being told (the source is unclear) that a tired Washington is fed up with India’s pussyfooting over Quad and has decided to “replace” the framework with another emerging bloc tentatively called the ‘Squad”, where India’s spot is taken over by the Philippines.

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India will only go so far in helping Quad to counter China in the South China Sea. New Delhi is more focused on its own neighborhood. Hence, US now has an alternate Quad—privately called “Squad”—that will do it. Squad replaces India with the Philippines.https://t.co/LksI4GNlwn

— Derek J. Grossman (@DerekJGrossman) May 4, 2024

I have come across some whacky arguments over the years. This one probably takes the cake.

Before we delve into why such a theory is baseless, uninformed, and unmoored from reality, the regional incidents that triggered the development of the latest ad-hoc network are worth recounting.

Philippines, under president Ferdinand Marcos who was elected into the office in 2022, has become the next big flashpoint in the South China Sea and a lightning rod for China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea.

Marcos has reversed former president Rodrigo Duterte’s policy of extreme appeasement of China, which had seen the Philippine Navy give up patrolling of even its exclusive economic zone (EEZ), hewed closer towards the US, its treaty ally, and has taken a more confrontational stance against China’s naked aggression in the Indo-Pacific — thereby incurring Beijing’s wrath.

China, through its infamous ‘nine-dash line’ and wanton flouting of international laws of the sea, claims almost the entirety of South China Sea that includes Philippines’ 200-nautical mile exclusive waterways as well as its resource-rich Second Thomas Shoal, a submerged reef situated in the Spratly Islands.

Beijing didn’t take kindly to Manila’s policy reversal and responded with a flurry of provocative moves and grey-zone tactics that included firing water cannons, ramming Filipino vessels and guiding military-grade laser beams at Philippine coast guard ships to prevent sailors from reaching BRP Sierra Madre, a rusty tank-landing ship from the World War-II era that sits atop the Second Thomas Shoal to enforce Manila’s permanent claim to the reef.

In response, the Joe Biden administration has been steadily intensifying strategic and security cooperation with its treaty ally and held its first joint naval and air drills with the Philippine defence forces last month in the disputed South China Sea, that also saw the participation of Japan and Australia.

Defence chiefs of the four nations, who had met on the sidelines of the Shangri-La security dialogue in Singapore last year, attended a series of meetings in Hawaii on May 2 and decided on an “ambitious” course of action that includes reestablishing deterrence against China’s hostility in South China Sea and deepening interoperability and security ties within the group that Pentagon officials, according to Bloomberg, are informally calling ‘Squad’.

All four treaty allies have promised to hold more maritime military drills and provide more muscle to Philippines in countering China’s hostile behaviour. At a post-meeting presser, US defence secretary Lloyd Austin said that China’s recent behavior in the South China Sea was “irresponsible” and “disregards international law.” They also issued a joint statement that “reiterated serious concerns” on China’s “repeated obstruction of Philippine vessels’ exercise of high seas freedom of navigation and the disruption of supply lines to Second Thomas Shoal.

China, that habitually denies such behaviour, has found it difficult to rebuff the charges. There’s a reason. Chinese hostilities have gained international attention owing to Philippines’ decision since 2023 to take international media crew on board its patrol ships to witness first hand China’s harassment and intimidation.

The result has been a spate of reporting on how Chinese water cannons, so powerful that it can bend steel, shattering the glass panels of Filipino boats and injuring sailors, ‘military-grade’ laser beams from Chinese maritime militia blinding Filipino sailors and Philippines’ fisheries vessel sustaining damage to electrical, navigation and radio systems after being rammed by Chinese coast guard ships.

Now that China’s methodical madness has gained global exposure, Beijing has become even more brazen in its approach. This context is important to understand the rationale behind another overlapping four-party framework focused exclusively on the maritime geography of East China Sea and South China Sea where the tiny Philippines, at the receiving end of China’s risky and destabilizing actions involving coast guard vessels and maritime militia, is desirous of a framework that promises a more equitable distribution of responsibilities and power to push back at China, and is busy retooling its foreign policy prerogatives to suit that agenda.

What the Philippines gets, if this grouping between four treaty allies is institutionalized, is more teeth to take on China. The US gets one more functional group among an array of minilateral arrangements aimed at containing China such as the Quad and Aukus — each with its own areas of focus and tapping into a set of independent capacities brought to the table by the actors involved. It is evident that these frameworks complement and even enhance each other instead of “replacing”.

Quad’s multi-tiered structure has a wider ambit by design, and its focus beyond maritime security into non-traditional security threats, along with incorporation of wide-ranging topics such as health, cybersecurity, climate change, technology, STEM research, HADR, supply chain linkages or global value chain makes it a one-stop solution mechanism in a region that is wary of antagonizing China or being sucked into the great power competition between China and the US.

That is not to say that Quad avoids working on security agendas.

As scholars Dhruva Jaishankar and Tanvi Madan have pointed out in Foreign Affairs, “The Malabar naval exercise that began as a bilateral operation between India and the US aiming to increase interoperability between the two naval forces now regularly involves the four countries’ navies. Separate antisubmarine warfare exercises often include other partners such as Canada and South Korea. The Quad has also conducted other military exercises with France and the United Kingdom on an ad hoc basis to build additional capacity for military cooperation.”

By soaking in all the attention, the Quad also allows other bilateral and trilateral security arrangements to go under the radar. The suggestion that a fledgling framework such as ‘Squad’, which is still at a conceptual stage, has made the Quad ‘inconsequential’ or ‘irrelevant’ emerges from a fundamental misconception of the nature of issue-based coalitions.

To quote Lisa Curtis, director of the Indo-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security in Nikkei Asia, the ‘Squad’ “is not a replacement for the Quad and should rather be seen as a supplement” because “India is an important part of the Indo-Pacific strategy. It’s a critical part.”

For its part, India is playing a critical role in this matrix by steadily ramping up its diplomatic and military ties with the Philippines. From offering helicopters to Philippine coast guards, delivering BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles to holding joint maritime exercises. India, with its naval prowess and mounting defence engagements with claimant states such as Vietnam or the Philippines is offering to burden share, and it ties perfectly with Manila’s attempts to forge new partnerships and diversify defence and economic ties.

As professor Harsh Pant writes in NDTV, “Many regional players are looking at alternatives to the dominance of China and the US in the regional security calculus. India’s naval presence and defence cooperation agreements extend its influence across the Indian Ocean and beyond. By engaging in joint exercises, capacity-building programmes, and humanitarian assistance missions, India asserts its commitment to fostering a secure and prosperous Indo-Pacific region…”

India’s ties with the Philippines are not restricted to advanced defense cooperation alone. Adani group, India’s largest commercial port operator, is eyeing expansion in the country including a plan to develop a port in Bataan, and the group’s managing director has already held discussions with president Marcos in this regard, according to reports in local media.

India has offered Philippines a loan at concessional rates to meet its defence requirements, New Delhi is sending its first-ever defence attaché to the country who, according to reports, “is expected to take charge in about three to four months” time and under the Narendra Modi government, India has become more vocal about China’s flouting of international norms and bullying of Philippines.

At a joint presser with his counterpart last month, India’s foreign minister S Jaishankar during his visit to Manila said India is “convinced that the progress and prosperity of this region is best served by staunch adherence to a rules-based order. UNCLOS 1982 is particularly important in that regard as the constitution of the seas. All parties must adhere to it in its entirety, both in letter and in spirit. I take this opportunity to firmly reiterate India’s support to the Philippines for upholding its national sovereignty.”

Needless to say, China wasn’t amused and thundered that “third parties have no right to interfere.” India is also sending warships to the South China Sea for naval exercises with “ friendly” countries thereby raising the stakes and making China feel hot under the collar.

It is therefore foolish to suggest that any regional framework such as Quad — that has the presence of a country that has an active land border dispute with China and sees eye to eye with the PLA — will have a diminished importance in the regional security matrix. If Quad is not focused narrowly on security, that’s a feature of the framework, not a bug.

The author is Deputy Executive Editor, Firstpost. He tweets: @sreemoytalukdar. The views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.