The Quad strives to retain its allure for India

US President Joe Biden, as part of his efforts to end his presidency on a high note, last month hosted a Quad summit in Wilmington, Delaware, bringing together the leaders of the four members of this maritime grouping — the US, Japan, Australia and India. The summit produced the voluminous Wilmington Declaration that, when implemented, could shape this grouping into a united and powerful entity to challenge China’s ambitions in the waters of the Indo-Pacific.

After a decade-long hibernation, the Quad was revived in 2017, with the member states sharing concerns about the political and security challenges posed by a rising China in the West Pacific and, for India, at its borders and in South Asia and the Indian Ocean. The Quad was upgraded from officials to foreign minister-level in 2019 and to summit level in February 2021, just after Biden entered the White House.

The Quad members are brought together by their shared vision of a rules-based order for the Indo-Pacific that ensures freedom of navigation — an obvious rebuke of China, which has made aggressive claims across the West Pacific in respect of the South China Sea, Taiwan and Japan.

At the Quad’s first in-person summit in Washington in September 2021, the leaders broadened its agenda beyond security into the areas of public goods, including health, climate change and clean energy, critical and emerging technologies, and infrastructure. This was perhaps done by the US to offer India the benefits of partnership in nonsecurity areas, so that over time it would gradually get more actively integrated into the security partnership as well.

This is proving difficult. While other Quad members are bound by long-standing security and defense agreements, India has continued to affirm its strategic autonomy and, while active in Quad initiatives, it frequently adopts positions that are contrary to US interests. Most recently, it has maintained defense and energy ties with Russia.

The US has, meanwhile, set up two overtly security-related entities in the West Pacific: AUKUS, which brings together Australia, the UK and the US, and, more recently, the Squad, which has the US, Japan, Australia and the Philippines as members. But the US has not given up on India. At Wilmington, in the area of maritime security, the Quad agreed to a training initiative, a coast guard observer mission in the South China Sea, a logistics network to boost airlift capacity and a “Ports of the Future” partnership to develop resilient port infrastructure.

In the public goods areas, the agenda was even more ambitious and included the development of digital public infrastructure to improve public services through technology; a semiconductor supply chains contingency network; a partnership for cable connectivity in Indo-Pacific waters; the empowerment of next-generation agriculture by using new technologies, and the “Quad BioExplore Initiative” to pursue the artificial intelligence-driven exploration of nonhuman biological data. The Quad also agreed to promote cooperation in cybersecurity and increased private sector investments in strategic technologies.

Anxious to augment its national capacities in diverse areas, India prioritizes the benefits that will accrue to it from cooperation in the public goods areas. But with the ongoing military standoff at Ladakh, it has no interest in aggravating ties with China, given that it shares a 3,800-km-long undemarcated border with its northern neighbor that periodically has dangerous flashpoints. India also has little enthusiasm for joining other Quad members in confronting China in the West Pacific, a maritime domain where New Delhi has relatively limited interests. Its principal area of concern is the western Indian Ocean, where it has both the naval heft and the regional facilities and alignments to safeguard its interests.

India, while active in Quad initiatives, frequently adopts positions that are contrary to US interests

Talmiz Ahmad

But there are also deeper issues in play. India does not accept the US’ framework of an emerging global binary — a new cold war with China in which Washington is seeking to retain its hegemony. Instead, India backs the shaping of a multipolar order in which diverse nations articulate and assert their own interests without joining a security alliance.

Again, India cannot be comfortable with the highfalutin rhetoric in Quad pronouncements, which have little relation to the actual conduct of the US and its Western allies. For instance, in July this year, the Quad foreign ministers, in their joint statement, “extended strong support for the principle of freedom, human rights, rule of law, democratic values … and peaceful settlement of disputes.”

Obviously, the US itself is the principal violator of all these principles, as evidenced, most recently, by the unconditional backing it has extended to Israel throughout its Gaza war. Not surprisingly, Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar has pointed out that Western powers “mouth all the right things, but the reality is it’s very much a world of double standards.”

The Indian position does, however, have its critics. The Economist has pointed out that the Quad is “losing focus and has lowered its ambitions” by pursuing the public goods agenda, rather than “focusing on organizing cooperation on defense.” Similarly, a report by the Australia-based United States Studies Centre has noted that the Quad “is not living up to its potential as a contributor to regional security and defense in the maritime domain.” One Indian commentator has urged New Delhi to “sharpen its focus on the security and military component of Quad.”

As Sino-US competition intensifies, India’s hedging could become problematic. When India hosts the summit next year, its partners could seek from it a more committed security role in the Quad.

• Talmiz Ahmad is a former Indian diplomat.