The United States, the Quad, and the Indo-Pacific

In November 2020, the “Quad” – the informal consultative arrangement between four democracies with stakes in the Asia-Pacific – will mark the three year anniversary of its reconvening in late 2017. In Manila, three years ago, senior officials from the United States, India, Australia, and Japan came together to kick off a new era of collaboration. That meeting came a decade after the initial iteration of the Quad in 2006-2007 had raised eyebrows in China – especially after the September 2007 Malabar maritime exercise. The 2017 resurgence of the Quad came amid a dramatically transformed geopolitical landscape in Asia. Looking ahead, the Quad would appear to have much continuing relevance and room to grow, even as it faces considerable challenges.

As this issue of The Diplomat goes to print, the United States is on the verge of a deeply significant election. While the outcome of the election will have significant bearing on the overall course of U.S. foreign policy in the Asia-Pacific region, the Quad’s relevance is likely here to stay. The group’s momentum today suggests a certain degree of staying power. Either a second Trump administration term or a new Biden administration will preserve and sustain the group. For the United States, allies and partners represent one of the most significant asymmetric advantages in the Asian region as the relationship with China grows more overtly competitive.

At a high level, 2020 has been a pivotal year for the Quad. Against the backdrop of the pandemic, Quad states have had to contend with a new set of challenges arising from an increasingly assertive China. For India, long seen as the odd one out in the Quad, 2020 has been clarifying: Its border dispute with China has flared to heights unseen in decades and generally allowed New Delhi to overcome domestic political hesitation to greater coordination with the United States. Australia, meanwhile, has seen its steadily declining relationship with Beijing continue into ever more difficult terrain. Canberra’s new defense strategic update, released late this summer, similarly reflected reconfigured thinking in Australia on the need to accelerate planning for an uncertain future. In Japan, meanwhile, Suga Yoshihide has taken over from Abe Shinzo, the original mastermind of the Quad in its 2006-2007 iteration and Japan’s longest-serving post-war prime minister.

Heading into 2021, indicators appear auspicious for the Quad’s sustained relevance. On October 19, the Indian Ministry of Defense extended an invitation for Australia to return to the U.S.-Japan-India trilateral Malabar exercise. The invitation came on the heels of a second Quad ministerial meeting in Tokyo, demonstrating continued high-level attention to the grouping. Australia’s participation in Malabar will render concrete the Quad’s growing focus on interoperability and military coordination. No, the group is still not a multilateral alliance or anything akin to an “Asian NATO,” but the building blocks of a more ambitious coalition are in place.

More seriously, however, the most important activities by the Quad states are not under the direct auspices of the four-country grouping. Rather, intra-Quad bilateralism and trilateralism – and the increasing inclusion of external parties – remains robust. Japan, India, and Australia have started discussing supply chain resiliency issues in the context of the pandemic and growing unease about a perceived economic overreliance on China, for instance. In September 2020, India and Australia held an inaugural trilateral meeting with France, the European power most keen to express its Indo-Pacific identity in recent years. A range of bilateral activities, including the Japan-India maritime exercise (JIMEX), U.S.-Australia Koolendong exercise, and inaugural refueling of a U.S. Navy P-8A Poseidon in India’s Andaman Islands, further underline growing coordination.

A major challenge for the Quad has been convincing other countries – particularly Southeast Asian states and smaller South Asian states – that the grouping is not explicitly a China containment coalition. For these states, approaching the Quad too closely can be seen as a de facto endorsement – one that China may not take kindly. For some in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Quad has often been seen as a challenger to long-held notions of ASEAN centrality. To stave off these perceptions, Quad senior officials have emphasized the benign nature of the grouping, drawing attention to its origins back in 2004, when the United States, Australia, India, and Japan came together to coordinate humanitarian assistance and disaster relief in the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami.

But the Quad’s partnerships are expanding. Vietnam, the Philippines, South Korea, and even Singapore have been mentioned as coordinating partners. Unofficially, some analysts now speak of a “Quad-plus” grouping, whereby the four core Quad countries can expand the scope of their activities with other states in the region and even certain extraregional partners, including France, the United Kingdom, Canada, and others. And given the wide ambit of the Quad’s activities, there are ways in which these countries can come together with the Quad without appearing to be signing up for an anti-China coalition. For instance, South Korea, Vietnam, and New Zealand participated in a virtual meeting earlier this year in March to discuss the pandemic.

The Quad can only do so much for the United States in Asia, however. Outside of security and defense coordination, the Quad’s economic agenda remains modest in scope. More seriously for the United States, the turn away from participating in multilateral trade regimes in the region continues to be a setback. Given the state of American domestic politics, it is difficult to imagine Washington evincing any interest in returning to the now 11-member Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership.

The Quad isn’t meant to – and can’t – do everything, but the gaps in what it can do need to be made plain. Successful, long-term U.S. engagement in the region will not only require fully leveraging and sustaining the Quad, but recognizing the broader shifts underway in Asia – shifts that have little to do with the United States in a direct sense.