The Quad has evolved into a coalition with increasing military cooperation and shared concerns over China’s rising power, though India’s reluctance to fully engage in a military alliance limits the group's effectiveness in countering China's influence in the Asia-Pacific.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio meets with Indian External Affairs Minister Dr. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, and Japanese Foreign Minister Iwaya Takeshi at the State Department in Washington, U.S., January 21, 2025. (Photo: Reuters)
American Secretary of State Marc Rubio used the attendance of foreign ministers Penny Wong, Subramanyam Jaishankar and Takeshi Iwaya of Australia, India and Japan at the second Trump inauguration as an opportunity to host his three counterparts in a Quad meeting on the same day. It’s “significant that the Quad (foreign ministers' meeting) took place within hours of the inauguration of the Trump Administration,” said Jaishankar on X. He added that it “underlines the priority it has in the foreign policy of its member states."
Additionally, the gravity of Chinese Vice-President Han Zheng’s presence in Washington when the Quad met was not lost on the China watcher—the signals from Washington were unmistakable.
The Quad, a coalition of four ‘democracies,’ originated in response to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, when the four countries coordinated to manage aid and disaster relief across the affected Indian Ocean countries. Three years later, the late Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe formally proposed and pushed for the four nations to work together to strengthen regional stability by leveraging their shared values and interests. With ideological underpinnings, the Quad assumed an anti-China posture. Following a policy review, Australia pulled back from joining a grouping perceived as anti-Chinese. However, after shifting to the right and growing wary of China's rise, the four nations reconvened during the 2017 ASEAN Summit in Manila, reviving the alliance. Since then, not only has the format and frequency of its annual meetings increased, but the range and depth of the issues discussed have also expanded significantly.
At their meeting in Washington, the four countries, united by concerns over China’s growing power, ‘recommitted to working together’, signalling that countering Beijing is a top priority for Trump as he enters his second term of office. They also released a joint statement, saying that the four country officials would meet regularly to prepare for the Quad leaders’ summit, expected to be held in India later this year.
Ironically, each of these states has committed to a ‘one China’ policy, yet they “strongly oppose any unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo by force or coercion," in relation to Taiwan, which China considers is its renegade province. And in a later statement issued by Japan, references to territorial disputes in the East and South China Seas were also included—issues that China views as core national interests.
In addition to the one billion post-Covid vaccination plan—under which India was expected to be the primary beneficiary—the Quad has launched several other initiatives, including the Quad Indo-Pacific Logistics Network pilot project, the Quad Ports of the Future Partnership, and the Quad-at-Sea Ship Observer Mission. However, bureaucratic hurdles prevented the full rollout of the vaccine initiative.
The first tangible step towards military cooperation came during Biden’s farewell summit in September 2024, when the Quad nations agreed to hold joint coast guard exercises Since coast guards operate as civilian forces in peacetime but fall under military command during wartime, the Quad maintains a nominally non-military posture. From China’s perspective, however, this development suggests the Quad is gradually evolving into a full-scale military alliance – potentially as an extension to AUKUS. It is, nonetheless, a clear reflection of the Quad’s growing emphasis on hard power.
Three of the four Quad countries – Australia, Japan and the U.S. – are security allies, with strong ties in the economic, technological and defence realms. India is an important economic and technological partner of the other three, and since 2016, the U.S. has recognized India as a Major Defense Partner. India, in the tradition of its non-aligned foreign policy background, remains reluctant to become a treaty ally in a military alliance. But it nonetheless participates together with other three in Malabar naval exercises, named after India’s west coast. The fact that these drills are not officially called 'Quad exercises' may reflect India’s reluctance to fully integrate into a military alliance. With India hesitant to take a confrontational stance against China, the Quad remains less cohesive and assertive than some of its members had anticipated."
Like other U.S.-led alliances in the Asia-Pacific region, the Quad presents a façade of peaceful cooperation while fundamentally serving as a counterbalance to China. Even though the Quad identified some developmental plans, none of its members have put enough resources on the table to match China’s funding. Over the past decade, China’s Belt and Road Initiative has invested an estimated $1 trillion in 147 countries. For comparison, in 1948, the U.S. allocated $13 billion to reconstruct Western Europe under the Marshall Plan. The Quad therefore, is unable to become a viable alternative to China as a source of capital for smaller countries in the Asia-Pacific region.
While China’s economic and military rise poses a challenge to the ‘rules-based world’ order, for China it is an ‘American rules-based order.’ From its conception by the late Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, it was clear that the group aims to be a military alliance for maintaining, as Abe stated, a free and independent Indo-Pacific. Now, Quad sponsors appear primarily focused on integrating India—the world’s most populous country—into a military alliance with the potential to counterbalance China in the future.
India’s disinclination to join an overtly military alliance, despite pressures, has diverted the group to collaborate on health security, debt management, regional connectivity, infrastructure, emerging technologies and sharing information on maritime security. That still keeps the Quad far from becoming a nucleus of what the Japanese Prime Minister calls an “Asian NATO.”
The Quad is likely to remain a mini-lateral grouping of these countries, and because of inability to match China’s investments and India’s unwillingness to join military alliance, will be unable to match China’s growing influence in the Asia-Pacific region.
