In 2018, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, famously predicted that the Quad is like “sea foam in the Pacific or the Indian Ocean: [it] may get some attention, but soon will dissipate.” That was four years ago and the Quad is still alive and well. Apparently he was wrong. So were I and a host of other analysts. It is important to understand why – and what changed.
The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue is an informal strategic dialogue among the US, Japan, Australia and India. It was initiated in 2007 by the Japanese prime minister at the time, Shinzo Abe. It was widely perceived as part of a China-containment strategy.
Since 2014, discussions were bolstered by the annual trilateral Malabar (US-Japan-India) and other trilateral exercises and at least one quadrilateral naval exercise. But after China issued formal diplomatic protests to Quad members asking their intention, Australia withdrew and the meetings ceased.
In 2018 the administration of US president Donald Trump re-raised the concept as part of its “free and open Indo-Pacific” strategy. But some members balked. In 2018, India, in deference to China, objected to Australia’s inclusion in Malabar even though the exercise took place in US waters.
Admiral Phil Davidson, then the head of the US Indo-Pacific Command, said that India’s navy chief at the time, Admiral Sunil Lanba, “made it quite clear that there wasn’t an immediate potential for a Quad.” He added that “there is limited appetite for operationalizing the Quad,” presumably meaning the militarization of the arrangement.
As Australian analyst Hugh White put it at the time: “Does anyone imagine that India is really willing to sacrifice its relationship with China to support Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, or that Japan would endanger its interests with the Chinese to support India in its interminable border disputes with China? Or that Australia would jeopardize trade with China for either of them, or even to support America?”
Some countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations – including ASEAN’s de facto leader Indonesia – were also uncomfortable with the concept as presented. They saw it as exclusionary and aimed at isolating China while ignoring ASEAN’s preferences.
Indonesia had been developing an ASEAN-centered Indo-Pacific strategy that was more consistent with the Southeast Asian bloc’s principles of inclusiveness (including China), consensus-building, and stress on a normative, political and diplomatic approach, rather than one that is excessively military and strategic.
According to leading Asia analyst Amitav Acharya, “the United States wants a ‘free’ and ‘open’ Indo-Pacific, but with a more overt military-strategic orientation.” The difference is ASEAN’s “determination to preserve ASEAN centrality in the development of Indo-Pacific architecture and counter any linking of the Indo-Pacific to a balance of power approach.”
Moreover, China was – and is – dead set against it. According to its Foreign Ministry, “China believes that the so-called Quad group cobbled together by the US, Japan, India and Australia is essentially a tool for containing and besieging China to maintain US hegemony.”
What changed
Given this context, the concept, at least as a military alliance, seemed more likely to go the way of the dodo than rise from its ashes like a phoenix.
So where did we all go wrong? Or more accurately, what changed?
We underestimated the depth of the China-phobia in Australia, Japan and even India, as well as China’s penchant for political blundering that reinforced it.
Then-prime minister Tony Abbott famously quipped, “Australia’s China policy is driven by fear and greed.” This applies to all the Quad members. Indeed, China’s economic dynamism, influence and largesse are major factors in Quad countries’ foreign-policy decision-making.
China is the most important trading partner for both Australia and India, particularly as an export market for their raw materials. Australia is, or was, also the second-largest recipient of Chinese direct investment. Japan’s exports to China now exceed those to the US and account for nearly 20% of its total exports.
But fear of China also plays a major role and seems to have won out over greed, with help from China’s bullying of Australia and its rival South China Sea claimants as well as its skirmish with India along their common border. Moreover the US cleverly exploited these blunders with a public relations campaign.
In Australia, the national debate pitted realists who foresee or accept the inevitability of China’s dominance and influence in Asia and on its society and values against idealists who are “willing to risk the economic benefits to preserve Western values and existing international order.”
Japan is constrained by its constitution as to what it can do militarily. Moreover, fear dominates avarice. Its worst nightmare is subjugation by a vindictive Beijing exacting revenge for its military’s racist and inhumane behavior in China prior to and during World War II. It fears that if the boot is on China’s foot, it will act the same way it did.
Non-aligned India faces a somewhat different and more nuanced trade-off. While it does need Beijing’s assistance in its infrastructure development, it is dominated by fears that China will make military mischief along the disputed border, beef up its presence in the Indian Ocean and provide increased military aid to India’s arch-enemy Pakistan.
US strategy
We also underestimated the ability of the US to assess the situation accurately and adjust the emphasis of the Quad concept from military to non-military cooperation, at least for the time being.
The new US Indo-Pacific Strategy features the Quad as a prominent part of its implementation. But in recognition of these reasonable concerns, the US now emphasizes non-military cooperation with its Quad partners.
Its Strategy says “we will continue to strengthen Quad cooperation on global health, climate change, critical and emerging technology, infrastructure, cyber, education, and clean energy.” It elaborates this by devoting an entire standalone paragraph in its Action Plan to “Deliver on the Quad.”
The only elements in the laundry list that might have military security implications are “work on critical and emerging technologies; joint technology deployment; sharing of satellite data to improve maritime domain awareness; and cooperate … to improve cyber capacity.”
We also underestimated the extent to which the US would go to reassure ASEAN and its members. The statement from the last Quad meeting says: “We reaffirm our strong support for ASEAN’s unity and centrality.”
But rather than supporting ASEAN centrality, a security-oriented Quad will become central to regional security management, including in the South China Sea. The relationship between the Quad and ASEAN security forums needs to be worked out. Although ASEAN is adopting a wait-and-see posture, in the meantime it is no longer publicly opposing the concept.
All this explains why the Quad is not moribund but is growing in strength, influence and acceptance. However, transitioning to direct military cooperation against China, as the US initially hoped and probably still does, will still be very difficult politically – barring further blunders by China.