JOIN USQuad, AUKUS and India's balancing act
The seeds of Quad were sown in December 2004 when the navies of India, Japan, Australia and the United States closely cooperated in rescue and relief operations after the tsunami wreaked havoc across the Indian Ocean region.
But it died in the crib and was reborn over the next 13 years. The Quad finally came of age last month when the leaders of the four nations met in Washington DC for its first in-person summit, which followed a video-conference among them on March 12.
The September 24 ceremony was, however, overshadowed by the birth of a new coalition, which two of the Quad’s four constituents — Australia and the US — forged with the United Kingdom. The AUKUS — Australia, UK and US — came into existence just 10 days before US President Joe Biden hosted Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and Australian PM Scott Morrison in the White House.
No matter what the leaders and diplomats in New Delhi, Washington DC, Canberra, Tokyo and London argue, it was not lost on anyone that the raison d’etre that the AUKUS has been born with is the same as that of the Quad — countering China’s expansionist and hegemonic aspirations in the Indo-Pacific region. So, why did Australia and the US launch the AUKUS with the UK, leaving aside India and Japan, their partners in the Quad?
The answer partially lies in New Delhi’s approach to the Quad and its quest for strategic balancing.
India led the resistance within the four-nation coalition against the US bid to turn the Quad into an “Indo-Pacific Nato”.
It insisted that the Quad must keep pursuing a benign agenda to counter China’s geopolitical influence in the Indo-Pacific, like dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic and supplying vaccines to countries in South Asia, South-East Asia and the Pacific, helping revive economies in the region, ensuring supply chain resilience, supporting construction of infrastructure, educational initiatives and humanitarian assistance.
The AUKUS, on the other hand, is unabashedly a security organisation focused on development of joint military capabilities and defence technology sharing among its three partners and on creating a framework for the US and UK to support Australia in acquiring a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines and build a deterrent against an increasingly aggressive China in the Indo-Pacific region.
Quad 1.0 had a rather short life. Just after it took shape with a low-key meeting of the US, India, Australia and Japan in Manila on May 24, 2007 and the four nations had the war drill with Singapore a few months later, China served démarches to the five nations, accusing them of ganging up against it. The four-nation initiative soon fizzled out.
Quad 2.0 was born in November 2017, a few months after the Indian Army had a 72-day stand-off with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) at Doklam Plateau in western Bhutan. New Delhi was then trying to mend its ties with Beijing. While the US referred to the “shared democratic values and principles” of the four nations, New Delhi carefully avoided referring to the Quad as an alliance of democracies against communist China. It also avoided officially referring to the relaunched version as ‘Quad’ and instead called it just the “Consultation on Indo-Pacific” — till the second ministerial meeting of the bloc in Tokyo in October 2020, nearly a year after the first in New York.
By the time the meeting of Quad foreign ministers in Tokyo took place, New Delhi’s hope for bringing its ties with Beijing back on track had already been dashed by China’s attempt to change the status quo along the border. The stand-off had reached a flashpoint, with 20 Indian soldiers and at least four of the PLA being killed in a clash in Galwan Valley. But External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar still resisted his counterpart and the then US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s push to turn the Quad into a Nato-like security bloc for the Indo-Pacific. So did Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi.
New Delhi was reluctant to be a part of an Indo-Pacific security architecture that would appear to be overtly adversarial to China. The Modi government was cautious about the implication of such a move on its long-standing partnership with Russia. Moscow had earlier denounced the Quad as a “divisive” and “exclusivist” tool being used by the US to implement its “devious policy” of engaging India in games against China. Besides, New Delhi was also apprehensive about the implication of formalising Quad on its own negotiations with Beijing to resolve the stand-off along the LAC.
So, the Biden administration elevated the Quad to the level of leadership with virtual and in-person summits, but at the same time also launched the AUKUS as a separate security bloc to counter China in the Indo-Pacific region.
New Delhi made it clear that it had nothing to do with the AUKUS and the new bloc would not have any impact on the Quad. “The Quad is for things, it’s not against somebody,” said Jaishankar, indicating that the coalition should not end up being seen as “some kind of ganging up” against China.
Beijing is not convinced though and, as the prime minister attended the Quad summit, China’s spokespersons stepped up the rhetoric against India. The border stand-off has not yet been completely resolved. The Indian Army is reviewing its preparedness to deal with any eventuality as China is not only continuing to deploy a large number of troops along the boundary, but also building barracks and other military logistics infrastructure, signalling its intent for a long haul.
India’s strategic convergence with the US in the Indo-Pacific grew further over the past one and a half years since the tension escalated along the LAC. Indian Navy had a series of war drills with the US Navy carrier strike groups, as they sailed into and out of the South China Sea, challenging exaggerated maritime claims of China. The navies of India, Australia, Japan and the US also participated in the annual Malabar drills in 2020 and 2021, although Foreign Secretary Harsh Shringla recently said the exercise should not be linked with the Quad.
India has so far managed to retain its strategic balance even as it faced growing belligerence of China. That is why it is still not part of a military alliance in the region. But New Delhi will always have the option of reviewing its approach if China continues to flex its military muscles and keep supporting its iron brother Pakistan even as it keeps exporting terror to India.
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