India rejects criticism of Quad as 'Asian NATO'

India on Saturday dismissed China’s criticism against the Quad and stated that it was not right to call the four-nation coalition an “Asian NATO”.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, however, joined their counterparts from Canberra, Marise Payne and Peter Dutton, to reaffirm shared commitment to rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific region, where India, Australia, United States and Japan forged the Quad to counter the hegemony of China.

As he and Singh hosted Payne and Dutton for the inaugural Delhi-Canberra 2+2 dialogue, Jaishankar formally confirmed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would later this month visit Washington DC, where he would meet Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia.

Modi, Morrison and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga are likely to attend the Quad’s first in-person summit, which would be hosted by American President Joe Biden.

Read | India, Australia emphasise on free, open Indo-Pacific

Payne said that she and Dutton discussed with Jaishankar and Singh the “challenges” in the South China Sea and the East China Sea, where China’s expansive territorial claims were not only contested by the communist country’s maritime neighbours like Japan, Philippines and the South East Asian nations, but also protested by the United States and others.

“I think a term like NATO is very much a cold-war term, looking back. I think Quad looks in the future, it reflects globalisation, it reflects the compulsions of countries to work together,” said Jaishankar, replying to a journalist, who asked for New Delhi’s response to criticism by China that called the Quad an “Asian NATO” led by the US.

The Quad is a coalition forged by India, Japan, Australia and the US in 2007 and revived in 2017 to create a bulwark of democratic nations to counter China’s expansionist moves in the Indo-Pacific. Modi, Biden, Suga and Morrison had held the first ever summit of the Quad through video-calls on March 12, elevating the four-nation coalition to the level of the leaders.

The External Affairs Minister on Saturday pointed out that the Quad was currently focussed on cooperation on ensuring availability of anti-Covid-19 vaccine in the Indo-Pacific, supply chain resilience, education and connectivity in the region. “I can't see any relationship between such issues and the NATO or any other kind of organisations like that. So I think it is important not to misrepresent what is the reality out there,” he said, dismissing the criticism by China.

The Australian Foreign Minister said during a joint news-conference after the 2+2 dialogue that the Quad nations were champions of the centrality of the Association of the SouthEast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in the Indo-Pacific region. “We are committed to supporting the practical implementation of the ASEAN outlook on the Indo-Pacific," she said.

“India and Australia share an important partnership which is based on a shared vision of a free, open, inclusive and prosperous Indo-Pacific region. As two democracies we have a common interest in peace and prosperity of the entire region,” Singh said as he and Dutton agreed to expand military engagements across services, facilitate greater defence information sharing and to work closely for mutual logistic support. Dutton said that Australia would invite India to take part in the Talisman Sabre wargame in Australia in 2023.

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