By Mayank Chhaya-
President Joe Biden wrapped up his signature foreign policy initiative, the quadrilateral partnership between the United States, India, Japan and Australia or the Quad, with a sharp focus on maritime security in the Indo-Pacific.
While a joint statement yesterday by Biden, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese did not refer to the Chinese government by name, it condemned “coercive and intimidating maneuvers in the South China Sea.” That was a clearly implied jab at Beijing.
As part of maritime security joint coast guard operations will be held next year and will include Australian, Japanese and Indian personnel spending time on a U.S. coast guard vessel.
Military logistics cooperation is also being increased without mentioning the area where the joint operations might take place.
The Indo-Pacific waters are crucial to trade and their dominance by a single power, namely China has long been a concern for Washington. The sharpening of the Quad’s mandate and its elevation to the top leadership level of the four in 2021 has been Biden’s defining foreign policy achievement.
“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,” Biden said.
Even as the Biden Administration maintained that the Quad summit was directed at no other country the president did flag off the summit’s group session with a briefing on China.
It is neither lost on the Quad leaders nor China’s President Xi Jinping that the overarching, albeit not explicitly stated objective of the group is to contain China in the Indo-Pacific. Xi has often objected to the Quad arguing that it is meant to encircle China and increase conflict.
Of the four members, India has the most difficult balancing act since it shares a 3,488 kilometers-long (2,167 miles) border with China which is frequently dotted with flashpoints between the two militaries. India’s leader of the opposition in Parliament, Rahul Gandhi of the Congress Party, has regularly pointed out that China has grabbed 4,000 square kilometers of territory in Ladakh bordering the neighbor in the north. It is a claim that the government has denied.
So while the Quad can be an effective diplomatic bulwark for Delhi against Beijing, it also has the potential to provoke the Chinese leadership. The U.S., Japan and Australia are not directly impacted by it.
An issue of particular concern to Washington and Tokyo is that Beijing claims practically the whole of the South China Sea which include the territory claimed by the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam. It also claims territories in the East China Sea in the face of challenges by Japan and Taiwan.
Apart from maritime security the Quad will also provide critical and security technologies, including a new open radio access network, to the Pacific Islands and Southeast Asia.
It also initiated a health initiative to fight against and create a cure for cervical cancer.
The Quad broadly enjoys a bipartisan consensus in Congress. With Biden ending his term on January 20, 2025, this summit was his major foreign policy farewell event.