Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended the first-ever in-person summit of the four leaders of the Quadrilateral Framework (Quad) in the Indo-Pacific in Washington.
U.S. President Joseph Biden had convened a virtual Quad summit with Mr. Modi and his Australian and Japanese counterparts, Scott Morrison and Yoshihide Suga (former PM of Japan), in March.
Experts say this indicates the U.S.’ intent to show its proactive strategy on the Indo-Pacific, even as it faces criticism for the manner of its pull-out from Afghanistan. There has also been some surprise over the emergence of the new trilateral, the Australia-U.K.-U.S. AUKUS Indo-Pacific grouping, which could overshadow the geo-strategic aspects of the Quad, dealing mainly with global social issues such as climate change, COVID-19 vaccines and supply chain resilience.
HIGHLIGHTS
Free and open Indo-Pacific: While the first iteration of the Quad grouping in 2005-2009, formed in the aftermath of the Asian tsunami, focused on friendly maritime exercises and HADR (Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief), its reprise in 2017 focused much more on the threat to the Indo-Pacific maritime sphere, mainly from unilateral actions by China on the South China Sea and other disputes.
Connectivity and infrastructure projects: The 2017 Quad meetings of officials followed the Belt and Road Initiative, and the grouping was seen as an economic adversary to China as well.
Countering COVID-19: During the March summit, the Quad countries announced plans for a “vaccine initiative”, which involved the production in India of a billion Johnson and Johnson (J&J) COVID-19 vaccines with U.S. funding and technology, and Australian and Japanese distribution in the Indo-Pacific countries needing it the most, by the end of 2022. This was essentially a philanthropic effort, devised when all the four Quad countries seemed confident of controlling the pandemic situation in their respective countries.
Critical technologies and resilient supply chains: The Quad also set up a working group on critical and emerging-technology “to facilitate cooperation on international standards and innovative technologies of the future”. This will involve discussions on ensuring consensus on what kind of 5G networks the Quad countries will promote, on data security and free flow, as well as on building supply chains that have been destroyed due to the Coronavirus pandemic, as countries withheld crucial material needed by others due to shortages within.
Climate change: The U.S. will be keen to see some commitments coming out of the Quad summit, ahead of the next U.N. Climate Change Conference, COP 26, in Glasgow in November. In particular, the leaders are expected to discuss specific goals to be included in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), like NetZero plans for carbon emissions, deadlines to end coal usage for thermal power plants and renewable energy goals, like India’s plans to build 450 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2030.