Quad to launch joint maritime surveillance in Indo-Pacific; China irked

New Delhi: India on Tuesday joined Japan, Australia and the US to add to the military heft of the Quad, launching maritime surveillance collaboration and expanding maritime domain awareness in the Indo-Pacific region – sending a message to China, which was quick to denounce the move by the four-nation coalition.Quad Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Delhi.

The four nations subtly took a dig at China for its expansionist moves in the East China Sea and the South China Sea.

"The maritime domain has seen a steady expansion of collaboration, including surveillance and domain awareness, logistics network, undersea cables, training, capacity building and HADR (humanitarian aid and disaster relief) activities,” External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said after hosting a meeting of his counterparts — Penny Wong of Australia, Toshimitsu Motegi of Japan and Marco Rubio of the US — in New Delhi for a meeting of the foreign ministers of Quad. "We will be continuing to deepen these areas in the times ahead."

A joint statement, issued after the meeting, noted that the Quad partners launched the first-ever Indo-Pacific Maritime Surveillance Collaboration initiative to enhance information sharing and maritime domain awareness capacity, with an initial focus on the Indian Ocean region.

The move came in the wake of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy’s increasing forays in the region. The four nations had earlier launched the Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness initiative to harness real-time information.

"The reason why maritime security is so important, beyond the fact that current events remind us of what can happen when maritime security is impeded, is the fact that 60% of global maritime trade passes through the Indo-Pacific,” Rubio said, referring to disruptions of maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz in the wake of the attack on Iran by Israel and the US as well as the retaliatory strikes by the Persian Gulf nations on the US allies in its neighbourhood.

The US secretary of state sought to warn about the consequences of a similar situation in the Indo-Pacific. He noted that unimpeded maritime commerce and freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific were of vital national interest, not just to India, Japan, Australia and the US, but “to dozens and dozens of countries, countless countries around the world”.  

The Quad was launched by four maritime democracies in 2007 and revived in 2017 to counter China’s expansionist moves and hegemonic aspirations in the Indo-Pacific region.

With New Delhi and Beijing trying to bring the bilateral relations back on track after the more-than-four-year-long military stand-off along the disputed boundary in Eastern Ladakh, and President Donald Trump’s recent meeting with President Xi Jinping underlining the United States’ re-engagement with China, uncertainty loomed large over the fate of the Quad. The meeting of the foreign ministers of India, Japan, Australia and the US on Tuesday, however, breathed fresh life into the four-nation coalition.

They, however, refrained from making public any tentative time when the Quad would have its next summit.

The Quad foreign ministers expressed “serious concern” over the situation in the East China Sea and the South China Sea, tacitly hitting out at China for its military muscle flexing in the maritime hotspots in the Indo-Pacific region. “We reiterate our strong opposition to any destabilising or unilateral actions, including by force or coercion, that threaten peace and stability in the region,” they asserted in the joint statement.

"We express our serious concerns regarding dangerous and coercive actions, including interference with offshore resource development, the repeated obstruction of freedom of navigation and overflight, and the dangerous manoeuvres by military aircraft and coast guard and maritime militia vessels, especially the unsafe use of water cannons and flares, and ramming or blocking actions in the South China Sea,” stated the Quad, adding: “We are seriously concerned by the militarisation of disputed features.”

They reaffirmed that maritime disputes must be resolved peacefully and in accordance with international law, in particular the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

An Arbitral Tribunal constituted on a request from the Philippines under the UNCLOS delivered a unanimous decision in 2016, rejecting China’s expansive claims in the South China Sea. China, however, declined to adhere to the award of the arbitral tribunal.

"We reaffirm that maritime disputes must be resolved peacefully and in accordance with UNCLOS and reiterate that the award rendered 10 years ago by the Arbitral Tribunal is a significant milestone and the basis for peacefully resolving disputes between the parties,” the Quad foreign ministers stated on Tuesday.

Motegi said the Quad on Tuesday sent “an unswerving and unshaken message” that it would strongly oppose attempts to unilaterally change the status quo by force or coercion and would advance the “necessary concrete cooperation” to ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific where the countries in the region would be able “to strengthen resilience and the capacity to determine their own future”.   

The Quad on Tuesday announced support to develop port infrastructure in Fiji. The island nation in the South Pacific Ocean, along with others in the region, grew dependent on the controversial Belt and Road Initiative of China for development finance and infrastructure over the past few years.

The four-nation coalition pledged to continue to explore opportunities that would advance prosperity and national security across the Indo-Pacific. With undersea cable networks under increased risk, the Quad is delivering on a commitment to expand and secure resilient connectivity in the Indo-Pacific, according to a factsheet released after the meeting of the foreign ministers of the four nations. They agreed to ensure that all Pacific Island Forum countries are connected via undersea cables by 2026 to secure their digital futures.

“We are focusing on what more we can do to assure a transparent, more secure maritime domain in the Indo-Pacific,” said Wong. “This is the context in which freedom of navigation and strategic stability can be operationalised.”

Beijing reacted sharply to the move to add fresh momentum to the Quad. “China has stated its position on Quad on multiple occasions,” Mao Ning, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the government of China, told journalists when asked to comment on the new measures by the bloc to boost maritime surveillance in the Indo-Pacific region.

“Cooperation between countries should be conducive to regional peace, stability and prosperity, and not target any third party. We oppose forming exclusive groupings or engaging in bloc confrontation.”