the recent summit meeting of the leaders of Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or QuadThe world could not have come at a more critical juncture in politics. between Russia’s invasion of Ukraine which has destabilized accepted norms on respect for territorial sovereignty; its knock-on effects on commodity and input prices, fueling inflationary pressures and impacting global supply chains; And the long-lasting effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which exposed deficiencies in public health infrastructure, are likely to be full and multifaceted, with leaders in India, the United States, Australia and Japan. Policy agenda in Tokyo, For leaders, there are obvious, if not explicitly linked, many global issues, the China factor and the unique strategic challenges that that country presented to a rules-based international order. While US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida were blunt in their condemnation of Russia’s belligerence, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Australia’s newly elected Prime Minister Anthony Albanese avoid direct reference to Moscow, as was indeed the Joint Statement of the Summit. On China, however, the four nations were on the same page, and the Quad joint statement called for continued cooperation to maintain a free and open Indo-Pacific; To comply with international law and to maintain freedom of navigation and overflight as reflected in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea; and to meet the challenges of a rules-based order of the sea, including in the East and South China Seas.
The Quad leaders confirmed two key messages from the dialogue. First, they will continue to strongly oppose coercive, provocative and unilateral actions by Beijing that seek to change the status quo and escalate tensions across the region, including maneuvers such as the militarization of disputed areas, the dangerous use of Coast Guard ships and Maritime militias, and covert attempts to disrupt offshore resource exploitation activities of other countries. To this end, the dialogue will continue to provide strategic depth to the military coordination mission between the members, notably including the annual Malabar exercise. The second message seeks to leverage dialogue member resources in vaccine delivery, climate action, supply chain resilience, disaster response, cyber security infrastructure and economic cooperation. Even though Beijing may consider the Quad “Asian NATO”, the talks could turn out to be much more than a strategic pushback on Chinese hegemony intentions. At a time when the liberal consensus on globalization has run its course and across the Indo-Pacific, there is a strong appetite, post-pandemic, to deepen regional cooperation for trade and investment. In this context, the Quad is in a pole position to shape economic alliances and regional security architecture towards a new world order based on national interest and genuine politics.