Indiaspora Executive Director Sanjeev Joshipura discusses issues being challenged at the Quad Summit.
One of the key reasons for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the United States this weekend will be his participation in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue Summit, hosted by President Biden in his home state of Delaware. The Summit will bring together leaders from Australia, Japan, India and the US, known collectively as the “Quad.” This strategic partnership is designed to help each nation advance several key objectives including humanitarian assistance, collaboration on critical technologies, economic development, and freedom of navigation within the Pacific.
This collection of nations proved effective at supporting each other during the Covid-19 pandemic, helping to support humanitarian efforts in the region. India’s role as a major provider of vaccine manufacturing was critical to this mission. Japan provided cold storage equipment to help countries maintain vaccine efficacy during distribution. Australia focused heavily on providing aid and medical supplies to Pacific Island nations and Southeast Asian countries. And the United States provided substantial funding for the development of the vaccine and to international organizations critical to its distribution like the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF.
Funding and logistical support helped each nation provide the vaccine to its citizens on an accelerated timeline. Post-pandemic recovery efforts led to even further communication and cooperation on our collective paths to recovery. And that level of communication and cooperation has clearly extended beyond the pandemic.
Each country can leverage the goodwill built over the last several decades to advance global efforts towards scientific advancements, resulting in meaningful improvements in areas like healthcare, agriculture and climate change. According to the Biden Administration, past Quad events have built a foundation for “enhanced private-public collaboration across our governments, industry, investors, academia, and civil society on critical and emerging technologies.”
But while cooperation and collaboration are admirable, one of the major initiatives of the Quad is to ensure ‘freedom of movement’ within the Pacific region. This is a very sensitive topic as China is wary of this strategic partnership as a potential threat to their interests in the region. The Quad is planning to conduct joint patrols of the seas, beginning with several exercises in November as part of this joint naval effort. Attempting to achieve these goals without escalating tensions with China could be a considerable challenge for the Quad as a collective, and for each individual nation.
There are a number of questions that remain to be answered. Will the Quad evolve into a more formalized structure, or will it progress to become an effective, wide-ranging but informal alliance? What areas of cooperation will the quad embrace, and which ones will it choose to address through unilateral, bilateral or other multilateral arrangements? Will the grouping decide to include other countries with shared interests that are routinely spoken of at every annual Quad Summit, like South Korea, Vietnam, or Singapore?
I would like to thank Indiaspora’s Marketing and Communications Manager Sameer Acharya for contributing to this post.