In likely his penultimate diplomatic maneuver, outgoing President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. hosted, for the final time, his counterparts from the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, better known as the “Quad,” in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware. It was a bittersweet event, as the U.S. president both celebrated the depth and momentum of strategic cooperation, while simultaneously sounding alarm bells about the looming challenges ahead.
Biden, no longer concerned with re-election, held no punches and even openly criticized China in a characteristic hot-mic moment. But his counterparts, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of Australia, Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, were more circumspect in their joint statement, emphasizing shared interests and cooperation rather than presenting themselves as an anti-China alliance.
Nevertheless, key initiatives announced during the latest Quad summit were clearly targeted towards rival powers, especially China. In particular, the four leaders announced plans to expand cooperation in cutting-edge technologies and critical infrastructure development with an eye on China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as well as to launch joint maritime exercises with an eye on China’s expanding naval footprint in adjacent waters.
In fact, the Quad powers even made a thinly-veiled criticism of China by underscoring how “seriously concerned” they were over the festering maritime disputes in the South China Sea and nearby waters. Unsurprisingly, China responded by accusing the four powers of engaging in Cold War-style alliance-building, which fosters “antagonism and confrontation, and hold[s] back other countries' development” through creation of geopolitical divisions and tensions.
Despite making major strides in recent years, thanks to the Biden administration’s attempts at institutionalizing the Quad grouping, the path ahead is full of uncertainties. A potential Trump presidency next year could seriously undercut relations with both key allies as well and raise tensions with rival powers, including China. Moreover, India is enjoying its own ‘great power moment’ after spending decades on the strategic sidelines, thus it’s highly likely that the South Asian power will increasingly shun any grouping that would limit its strategic autonomy and ability to maximize its own national interest.
The China Factor
From its very inception, the Quad had China in sight. The late Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the undeclared architect of the powerful grouping, was the chief advocate of a “security diamond” alliance of like-minded powers in Asia, who perceive China as a threat.. If anything, the conservative-nationalist Japanese leader almost single-handedly mainstreamed the “Indo-Pacific” geopolitical terminology and doctrine throughout his long stint in power, beginning in the mid-2000s but reaching its apogee a decade later.
At first, both India and Australia remained deeply reluctant to join anything that resembled an anti-China alliance. On its part, the more liberal Congress Party in India was committed to maintaining stable, if not warm, relations with Beijing throughout its stint in power in the 2000s. Crucially, even Australia, then under the Mandarin-speaking Kevin Rudd administration, was committed to pursuing and preserving a commercially vibrant and diplomatically fruitful relationship with Beijing.
Abe found greater success when he returned to power in the 2010s, following a difficult departure a few years earlier. The rise of populist-nationalist leaders in India (Narendra Modi) and America (Donald Trump) generated an unprecedented momentum for Quad cooperation, just as Australia-China relations began to deteriorate over mounting allegations that Beijing was attempting to influence Australian operations.
The Trump administration, in particular, espoused the Abe-inspired “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” doctrine, which not-so-subtly characterized China as the main threat to the liberal international order. But Washington overlooked its own protectionist and unilateralist policies, most notably Trump’s unilateral imposition of tariffs and nixing of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) pact, which clearly undermined basic freedoms across the Indo-Pacific.
Once in power, the Biden administration was quick to recalibrate America’s foreign policy by emphasizing multilateral cooperation, economic cooperation, and a more consultative approach to international diplomacy, especially with allies in Asia. Crucially, the Biden administration quickly moved to institutionalize the Quad by, inter alia, launching the inaugural Quad Summit and giving a more ideological tinge to the power grouping by emphasizing their ‘shared democratic values.’
The fourth edition of the Quad summit, this time in Biden’s hometown, got off to an interesting start, with Biden indulging in a diplomatic offensive. “China continues to behave aggressively, testing us all across the region, and it’s true in the South China Sea, the East China Sea, South China, South Asia and the Taiwan Straits,” Biden told his visitors from other Quad members. “At least from our perspective, we believe Xi Jinping is looking to focus on domestic economic challenges and minimize the turbulence in China diplomatic relationships, and he's also looking to buy himself some diplomatic space, in my view, to aggressively pursue China's interest," he added, underscoring how China continues to dominate Americas’ Quad strategy.
Less Than Meets the Eye
Eager to ensure the Quad’s long-term sustainability, Biden and his three counterparts launched a whole series of cooperative initiatives, focusing on critical infrastructure development, next-generation technology such as semiconductors and artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and even maritime security. Accordingly, they vowed to expand their strategic cooperation based on the 2022 Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness by launching their first-ever coast guard joint drills next year.
In response, top Chinese experts criticized the Quad for promoting a “bloc confrontation” mindset at the expense of regional security. Earlier, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian had accused the power grouping of “forming exclusive clubs that undermine trust and cooperation among regional countries…[which] runs counter to the overwhelming trend of pursuing peace, development, cooperation, and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific and will by no means gain any support.”
China has its reasons to be concerned. After all, over the past three years, the Quad has made significant strides, especially as America, Japan and Australia doubled down on their comprehensive strategic cooperation with a rising India. Nevertheless, there are manifold challenges, which could torpedo the Quad’s long-term viability and internal coherence.
Signs of trouble were evident early on. In 2022, Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar made quite telling interventions during the Munich Security Conference in Germany. When I asked him about the narrative of Quad becoming an “Asian NATO,” he was adamant that India would ultimately go its own way and not be bound by any alliance structure. Over the next two years, the South Asian power would openly defy Washington by not only rejecting Western sanctions against Moscow, but even expanding trade ties with and insisting on purchase of major weapons systems from Russia.
As a rising India embraces its great power moment and its newfound status as a “Global South” leader in an increasingly multipolar world, it will likely distance itself from any grouping dominated by Washington. If anything, the Biden administration has anticipated more fraught ties with New Delhi by developing alternative trilateral and minilateral security arrangements with key treaty allies of South Korea, the Philippines, Japan, Australia and even the United Kingdom. This trend will likely continue regardless of who replaces Biden next year.
Ultimately, however, the potential return of a Trump presidency will likely inject tremendous uncertainty into the Quad future, especially if it will embrace the triple vices of protectionism, unilateralism and isolationism. By and large, a second Trump administration may accelerate great power rivalry, alienate rising powers such as India, and inadvertently usher in a more multipolar, post-American global order.
