The Quad is a very unique piece of strategic diplomatic engineering.
When people learn about the history of the Quad, they find that there's a lot of surprises in there.
The Quad has had, essentially, a set of activities around building a favorable balance of power
that can deter bad behavior in the region.
At the Shangri-La Dialogue, senior defense officials have gathered to talk about the
Asia Pacific region’s most pressing security challenges.
The world has changed since the last Shangri-La Dialogue in 2019.
Geopolitical tensions in the South China Sea remain, while a global pandemic and Russia’s
invasion of Ukraine have added fuel to the fire.
China isn’t pleased with some of the developments in the region,
such as the multinational group called the Quad.
The real goal of the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy is to establish an Indo-Pacific version of NATO.
So, what is the Quad, and what does it mean for countries in the region?
The Quad, or the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, comprises four big economies,
the United States, India, Australia and Japan.
Over the years, it’s been imprecisely dubbed as the ‘Asian NATO,’ or ‘a security alliance,'
terms which the Quad partners have denied or dismissed as ‘misleading.’
CNBC managing editor Ted Kemp is the author of a project
focusing on the future of the Quad in Asia-Pacific.
There is definitely a perception that the Quad is some sort of Indo-Pacific parallel to NATO,
but that’s really not the case. Because it has no specific mandate, they can make economic issues,
issues around Covid or even global warming part of the mandate of the Quad, and in fact, they are doing that.
The four countries first came together after the 2004 Indian ocean tsunami
to help with rescue and reconstruction assistance.
As recovery efforts tapered down, the group was disbanded.
In 2007, Shinzo Abe, who was then Japan’s Prime Minister,
called for an “arc of freedom and prosperity” around the Pacific and the Indian Oceans.
Shinzo Abe proved very far-sighted in the way that he made use of the Quad framework
to begin to build something more permanent.
If there is one individual who brought the Quad to life, it’s him.
As China got wind of their first joint meeting that year, it became concerned about their intentions.
Beijing subsequently lodged formal protests against the four countries.
China saw the writing on the wall.
Individual Quad members were not talking about this being a response to China, but Beijing knew.
The problem for China is that the more it has protested, and especially the more aggressively
it protested, the more it strengthens the Quad.
Australia, Japan and Singapore were invited to join India and the U.S. for Exercise Malabar
in the later part of 2007 – naval wargames that would later become
a permanent feature for the Quad countries.
In the years that followed, the future of the group was tied
to the fortunes of politicians in the four countries.
And then Shinzo Abe left office, and the Quad effectively fell off the map.
By then, the political appetite to continue with the Quad was waning.
Two months after Abe’s resignation, Australia had a new Prime Minister in Kevin Rudd,
who withdrew the country from the security dialogue.
The U.S. also had more pressing concerns then, such as Iran and North Korea.
This coincided with a state visit by India’s then-Prime Minister to Hu Jintao’s China.
It’s very important to note in that respect that India really sets the pace when it comes
to considering the explicit mention of China as a security item on the agenda of the Quad.
Of the four countries in the Quad, India is the only one which shares,
really, a land border with China and a long one and contested one at that.
This leads India to have a particularly cautious and nuanced approach.
We are definitely a part of the Quad.
It is certainly not a military alliance as far as the Indian Navy is concerned
and as far as India is concerned.
We would like to cooperate in any sort of eventuality where our common interests are
addressed, mostly, I would say, below the conflict threshold.
Despite inactivity on the political front, the Quad nations continued with their military exercises.
During that period, the U.S. was also pursuing a “pivot to Asia.”
Then, Xi Jinping’s era begins in 2012, and quickly the world’s democracies learn that
there isn’t going to be some sort of democratic reformation that occurs over time within China.
Shinzo Abe then comes back into office right behind Xi and kicks it right back up again.
And that’s how we basically evolved to the Quad that we have today.
As China under President Xi Jinping pursued a more aggressive foreign policy,
tensions were brewing in the South China Sea and its borders.
Japan’s Abe was also bent on reviving his idea of an “arc of freedom and prosperity,”
this time called the “Asia’s Democratic Security Diamond.”
What the Quad countries individually and collectively have been concerned about is about China’s behavior.
Whether that is in the South China Sea, the militarization of the islands there.
The harassment of claimants in that region, or it is in the East China Sea.
Or, for instance, at the China-India border.
They believe that these spaces, China has taken unilateral moves to change the status quo,
sometimes with the use or the threat of the use of force.
They also think that Beijing has been using its economic influence for coercion, for instance, against Australia.
The wheels were set in motion once again in 2017 when senior officials from the Quad nations
met on the sidelines of the ASEAN and East Asia Summits.
Since then, officials from the four countries have met regularly,
culminating in the first Leaders Summit in 2021, held virtually due to the pandemic.
The Quad leaders then met in-person later that year in Washington.
So how can the Quad be an effective counterbalance to China’s dominance in the region?
The Quad is essentially a group of like-minded countries who share a vision of the region,
of the Indo-Pacific, that they’d like to see, a free, open, inclusive, secure, prosperous region,
where countries are free to choose and where rules-based order prevails.
The difference between a rules-based order and a coercive one, is one where the rules
are actually followed by the bigger powers and the smaller powers alike.
Whereas a coercive one is where some countries get to dictate terms and get to use their
power and influence to set the terms alone and for their own needs.
They also have a view that this vision is being challenged through various means,
for example, to put it very bluntly, by coercive steps from China.
And they have decided that they alone cannot tackle these challenges.
They cannot offer alternatives all by themselves.
We will be steady and consistent, looking for avenues of cooperation where they exist
while recognizing China’s growing power and the manner in which that is reshaping our region.
We will also stand by our friends as they uphold their rights, and that’s especially
important as the PRC adopts a more coercive and aggressive approach to its territorial claims.
So, I think it’s not China’s power per se or its rise.
After all, the four Quad countries, if China is not their largest trading partner,
it’s pretty close up there.
They have their own ties with China.
The idea is to provide choice, to provide stability, and to bring resources to the region
that otherwise might not have been available.
Now, it is incumbent upon the Quad to show that they can deliver.
But is there room for the Quad to expand, to become the Quint, perhaps?
I think a year ago, there was still some question, but I think that debate has now ebbed.
At the start of 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic was raging worldwide, Vietnam, South Korea
and New Zealand joined the Quad members for a discussion on controlling the pandemic.
Countries like South Korea, for example, can plug in and say we want to work,
not on all the Quad issues, but certain agenda items.
Or Vietnam, for example, working on the public health side.
Other countries might be interested in working with the Quad in maritime security.
And so, I think the flexibility, both in terms of agenda, as well as who you partner with,
how you partner, is, I think, something that the Quad should maintain because I think that
will make it more responsive and adaptive to the region's needs.
If you look at Southeast Asia, if you look at the Southeast Asian nations,
there’s a broad spectrum of willingness to work with the Quad or seeing an advantage to working
with the Quad versus not seeing an advantage.
There is no single Southeast Asian take on the Quad.
We’re looking a lot more at like-minded associations, and there’s nothing preventing
the Quad from doing Quad Plus arrangements with single countries like France, like the UK.
It's fitting within a new order, which is emerging, which includes the AUKUS Pact.
AUKUS is a nuclear submarine and security deal between Australia, the U.S. and the U.K., signed in 2021.
The AUKUS Pact is a straight up military deal designed to strengthen Australia’s naval deterrent.
It’s not one-off, but it feels more one-off than the Quad,
which is a more open framework and one with greater staying power.
It may perhaps be a little ironic that |the strength of the Quad lies in its informal nature.
Because the Quad is not an alliance, its four diverse members
have the flexibility to pick and choose what they'll work on together.
The Quad is one of many coalitions and mini-laterals in the region.
We’re moving from the hub-and-spoke model in Asia to a spiderweb model,
where it’s not just all roads lead to Washington or all roads lead to Beijing.
It is a spiderweb where the various nodes are connected in different ways to each other.
Even as the Quad nations have intensified their cooperation, it hasn’t been entirely smooth sailing.
India’s refusal to condemn Russia for its invasion of Ukraine has put it at odds with its Quad partners.
Preserving unity within the group may be a delicate balancing act.
In April 2022, India refused to allow Japanese military planes transporting
aid supplies to displaced Ukrainians to land in the country.
How have they been able to get around these disagreements within the Quad countries?
One thing the differences over Russia have highlighted is that the Quad is like-minded,
but it’s not same-minded on everything.
While India hasn't condemned Russia by name,
it has condemned actions that violate those principles and rules.
The disagreement, I think, comes in, how do you tackle those violations?
The way they talk about it is we respect that we are not the same country,
and that one country will not dictate terms to others.
That a diversity of views is possible.
I think we very much saw a grouping which was capable of mutually sidestepping that difference
and focusing on practical points of convergence and, indeed, practical cooperation.
These areas of cooperation include infrastructure development, climate initiatives
and a working group on vaccines.
Japan comes in with a wealth – quite literally – of financing, which does help a country
like India, which is a leading producer of vaccines, be able to come together with Australia
and the U.S. to distribute vaccines for relief from the pandemic, as a common good.
So I think the Quad has found its legitimacy, validity, and its purpose in the broader re-composition
of the strategic landscape in the Indo-Pacific.
At the recent Quad leaders’ meeting in Tokyo, we confirmed that the Quad will seek to extend
more than US$50 billion of further infrastructure assistance
and investment in the Indo-Pacific over the next five years.
The future of the Quad, to a very large extent, is going to depend on the
domestic political environment in the United States.
Because if there’s one threat to the Quad that’s existential, it’s the U.S. withdrawing from it.
Like all institutions, and like all bureaucracies, the Quad, the longer it continues to thrive,
does it get to escape velocity and get to a point where it can survive any of this stuff
that might arise domestically and in these countries’ politics?
I don’t know, we’ll see.