In November this year, Japan, India, the United States (US), and Australia came together to conduct phase I and II of the Malabar Exercises in the section of the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea respectively, that flank India’s southeastern and southwestern borders. The exercise is conducted annually between the US, Japan, and India, but this year was particularly significant, as Australia was invited to join in by India for the first time in thirteen years. The grouping—officially known as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or the Quad for short—is an informal strategic dialogue between the four countries aimed at collectively enhancing regional security. Despite multiple calls for the agreement to convert the group into a formal security alliance, members have shied away from transforming it into the “Asian NATO”. This decision has offered India several gains and minimised the potential losses or risks of joining the alliance; however, in order to fully maximise the group’s dormant power, India must take an active lead. Against this backdrop, it becomes crucial to ask: how indispensable is this security grouping to India’s defence needs?
The Quad first came into existence in 2007 after erstwhile Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe founded the concept in his book “Utsukushii Kunihe (Toward A Beautiful Country)”. The foundation of the grouping was based on Abe’s vision of “democratic peace” between Asian democracies who are “natural allies”. Yet, the realisation of this vision has been somewhat impeded by the fact that China was and continues to be an indispensable trade partner of each Quad member.
For example, in 2008, under pressure from Beijing, Australia hurriedly exited from the agreement to honour its Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with China. In fact, other members, too, have made significant overtures to pacify Chinese concerns about the motives of the grouping. For example, former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh clarified that the Quad had “no security implication”. Other leaders also joined the Indian leader in downplaying the importance of the grouping in order to placate the indispensable economic powerhouse.
Since then, however, India has sought more active participation in the Quad in order to advance its goals of becoming a multipolar player of note; these moves have only been expedited by New Delhi’s fraying relationship with Beijing over a decades-old border dispute. Similar to its strategy in the South China Sea, China has taken an aggressive stance along its 3,440 kilometres long disputed border with India; even hundreds of rounds of diplomatic negotiations have failed to effectively solve either side’s grievances. The Aksai Chin region is claimed by China as part of its Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region and also by India as part of the union territory of Ladakh. China’s all-weather friendship with Pakistan also represents another threat to Indian security.
China, for its part, remains undeterred by recent escalations along the border, with satellite images showing that it continues to build new villages and infrastructure only a few kilometres away from the Doklam plateau, which was also the site of a skirmish between Indian and Chinese troops in 2017. Doklam, or Donglang in Chinese, is an area spread over less than a 100 sq km comprising a plateau and a valley at the trijunction between India, Bhutan and China. It is surrounded by the Chumbi Valley of Tibet, Bhutan’s Ha Valley, and India’s Sikkim, and offers a commanding view of the region. This strategic location provides significant logistical advantages due to its easy to navigate and traverse terrain, which explains why both the Indian Army and PLA claim ownership of the region. Beijing has, of course, dismissed claims that the construction encroaches on Bhutanese or Indian territory.
Following the war of 1962, India has historically been hesitant to explicitly address its issues with China. However, enduring tensions and violence along its shared frontier with China has led to the Narendra Modi administration taking a more assertive position and being more explicit in what India seeks to gain through the Quad. Minister of External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar has now overtly stated goals that India hopes to use the Quad to contain China and create a multipolar Asia. Unlike in past years, amid rapidly deteriorating diplomatic and trade relations with all four members, China is now under no illusions about what the Quad represents, with India and other members clearly stating their vision of a “free and open Indo-Pacific”.
Hence, alongside the US, India has initiated a giant shift in the Quad’s ability and willingness to challenge Chinese expansionism. This has greatly enhanced India’s diplomatic capital and advanced its goals of becoming a global power. At the same time, it has provided India with a vital opportunity to diversify its defence capabilities while still retaining its sovereignty in decision making. Much of this flexibility is derived not only from India’s growing assertiveness but also from the structure of the Quad itself.
By continuing to shy away from signing a formal document that would make the grouping an official security alliance like the NATO, member-states have been able to increase the Quad’s adaptability. International alliances are usually formed with the aim of achieving very specific goals, but they tend to lose their purpose once the political climate changes—the probability of which happening in any scenario is highly likely. For example, the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) was formed in 1954 to prevent the spread of communism in the Indo-Pacific. However, members began withdrawing following the end of the Vietnam War, because the very reason for its existence had disappeared and the alliance failed to provide much else to its members.
Further, the flexibility offered by the lack of a formal structure allowed India to expeditiously invite Australia to participate in joint naval exercises this year. Since the Quad is not a multilateral group that solicits membership or expects reciprocal obligation from its members, it offers scope for expansion and alteration, as members can swiftly invite additional strategic partners according to the changing winds of international politics. For instance, Vietnam, New Zealand and South Korea are strategic partners of all Quad members and have all been mooted as possible future additions to the Quad Plus. In fact, in March this year, the three countries virtually joined the Quad’s meeting to discuss the COVID-19 pandemic, offering India the opportunity to expand its global footprint and boost bilateral and multilateral ties.
The Quad also allows India to honour, preserve, and strengthen its Cold War-era foreign policy of non-alignment. “India’s reluctance to be drawn into any kind of an alliance given its long-standing policy of strategic autonomy prevents it from converting the Quad into a formal security alliance. In addition, Japan and Australia are closely connected to China in the economic realm,” says Dr Rupakjyoti Borah, a Japanese studies expert. India has therefore been able to use the open nature of the agreement to its advantage, satisfying its desire to remain strategically autonomous, which remains a key pillar of its foreign policy.
In a scenario where Quad members actually put ink to paper and form a security alliance, the US might have dominated proceedings, which could have undermined Indian interests. For example, within NATO, the Trump administration has often raised concerns of the unequal burden-sharing at a significantly higher financial and human cost to the US. As a result, Washington abruptly decided to pull out a large number of troops from various stations across Europe, in what was a clear attempt to bully fellow member-states to accede to American demands. This bulldozing approach not only fosters instability within an alliance but can also introduce unwanted financial expenditures. Therefore, India is perhaps thankful that the informal nature of the Quad prevents such instances from occurring.
That being said, given Trump’s aversion to multilateral alliances, it was perhaps unlikely that India would have been offered the opportunity to join a formal security alliance in the first place. And although Biden has promised to strengthen existing alliances, he has not promised to create any new ones. Still, by avoiding formal engagement with the Indo-Pacific powers, India has managed to preserve its potential to be a regional leader within the existing arrangement.
This flexibility also offers the option for course correction. India has clearly stated its goal of using the Quad to counter China’s influence across the Indo-Pacific region; however, New Delhi continues to keep one eye on ensuring that bilateral ties with Beijing do not sour to the point that India’s economy is too adversely impacted. At the same time, India is wary of leaving too little room for conflict resolution with China. Therefore, in order to ensure that Chinese policymakers know that the Quad can serve alternative interests aside from countering China, India has stressed that its participation within the Quad also advances its goals of ‘looking’ and ‘acting’ East. Dr Rajesh Rajgopalan refers to this hedging tactic as ‘evasive diplomacy’, which attempts to balance a threat while simultaneously also reassuring that they are not attempting to shift the balance. Naturally, China is bound to be aware of India’s motives, so evading direct dialogue is not a foolproof solution. Dr Rajgopalan further argues that, although it helps India’s present dilemma, it may not be a long term or useful strategy. Nevertheless, India has thus far succeeded in preventing its bilateral relationship with China from being affected too harshly. The economic spillover, too, has been fairly minute, given that the two countries share a mutually beneficial trade relationship, with Chinese investments in India crossing $26 billion.
One of the reasons India remains cautious is likely rooted in China’s highly adaptable economic policies that can change at a whim, particularly with regards to trade barriers against countries that have been critical of its actions. For example, when the US imposed tariffs on Chinese products last year, China retaliated with a tit for tat response. China didn’t just match the tariff and impose the same on US products imported by China, but it also made it effective from the exact dates that the Trump administration did. Likewise, this year, Australia has called for international investigations into China’s complicity in the coronavirus pandemic, described Beijing’s territorial claims in the South China Sea (SCS) as having “no legal basis”, criticized the new security legislation in Hong Kong and the treatment of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang province, elevated its relationship with India from a Strategic Partnership to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (CSP), participated in the Malabar naval exercises with the Quad, signed a defence pact with Japan, and joined US warships in an attempt to steer Chinese vessels out of Malaysia’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). In response, China has placed strict trade restrictions and even temporary bans on a number of Australian exports, including copper, wine, beef, barley, timber, lobster, coal, dairy, fruit, and oatmeal.
Similarly, when India banned over 118 Chinese apps, Beijing warned that discriminatory moves like these will hurt Indian interests and that retaliation from Beijing cannot be ruled out. India must recognise the importance of its trade relationship with China and heed its warnings of retaliation. India currently has a trade deficit of $48.64 billion due to its heavy reliance on Chinese imports; China is India’s second-largest trading partner, second only to the US. In the larger scheme of things, burning this bridge might not be a risk worth taking, because, after all, it is also in New Delhi’s best interests to appease Beijing in order to prevent a more dangerous escalation of cross-border violence.
At this stage, even though China eyes the Quad’s activities with suspicion, the joint naval exercises alone are not threatening enough for Beijing to retaliate. Moreover, the participating nations are neither obligated to defend each other nor permanently station defence vessels and equipment near Chinese territory as part of the agreement. Further, even though Beijing realizes that Washington’s fear of Chinese actions will continue under the Joe Biden presidency, it takes refuge in the fact that the approach is predicted to not be as hardline.
Thus, by continuing to participate in peaceful naval exercises, even those that exclude Beijing, India is offering a tacit acknowledgement of its reliance on China and its desire to minimise the damage to its own economy. Simultaneously, India has left the door open for reconciliation, which is yet another acknowledgement that continued tensions along its border with China serve neither country’s interests. At this stage, India’s border dispute with China has not reached the point of no return. In this light, it is tactful on India’s part to walk the tightrope with China, while also continuing to forge stronger ties with Pacific allies who share India’s goals of maintaining a stable balance of power in the region and freedom of the seas, countering debt-trap diplomacy, and limiting Chinese territorial coercion.
Ultimately, despite the many changes in the international sphere, the Quad’s informal nature complements India’s foreign policy goals of remaining a non-aligned and adaptable power. However, if India is to fully maximise the latent power of the Quad, it must seriously consider adding new strategic partners to the alliance. The Lowy Institute, for instances, has pointed out that joint interoperability, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities with more countries could yield significant strategic benefits. It has also suggested deeper collaboration in the development of defence technology. Lastly, in order to fully realise the vision of countering China and increasing India’s diplomatic capital, New Delhi could consider creating an alternative to Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) by establishing a critical infrastructure funding scheme for smaller nations; given that China has routinely been accused of debt-trap diplomacy, this presents a unique opportunity for India to project its power.
How Does India Stand to Gain From the Quad?
The Quad’s informal nature complements India’s foreign policy goals of remaining autonomous and non-aligned and enables it to be forever adaptable to the changing winds of international politics.
December 9, 2020
SOURCE: THE DIPLOMATIST