Has the Quad lost its way?

The idea was that grand government buildings in Delhi would host this year’s meeting of the “Quad”—a coalition comprising America, Australia, India, and Japan. That was before prosecutors in New York uncovered an attempt to assassinate an American activist of Sikh heritage, allegedly at the direction of Indian intelligence officers. Joe Biden decided against visiting India (though his staff blamed scheduling challenges, not diplomatic worries, for that call). Instead, on September 21st, America’s president hosted the leaders of the Quad countries at a suburban school in his home state of Delaware.
Under Mr Biden the Quad has become a fixture of Asian diplomacy. His aides say that it is here to stay. Donald Trump’s advisers say that, if elected, he would maintain it, too. The fact that this year’s summit took place despite what would have once been an explosive controversy between America and India suggests strong support in both countries for the institution. Yet critics warn that the Quad is losing focus and has lowered its ambitions.
The first meeting of what was then known as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue took place among foreign ministry officials from the four countries in 2007. Later that year, the four countries’ navies exercised together in the Bay of Bengal. China feared the four were plotting to contain it and angrily condemned the grouping; it fizzled out the following year.
But after Mr Trump was elected in 2016, Australia, India and Japan, fearing abandonment, sought to better secure America’s involvement in the region. Meetings between the Quad’s senior diplomats resumed in 2017. Naval exercises restarted in 2020 (though spokespeople insist that they are not Quad exercises, just drills that happen to include the four Quad countries).
In some ways Mr Biden has moved things up a notch. He has convened six meetings of leaders of the Quad countries, four of them in person. If American assistance for Ukraine is likely to be his main legacy in Europe, then turning the Quad into a lasting institution is his hoped-for legacy in Asia.
Yet the Quad has also adopted some new characteristics on Mr Biden’s watch. It has become more focused on providing what its leaders like to call “public goods” for the Asia-Pacific as a region, and a bit less focused on organising closer co-operation in defence. Military officers and defence officials are not invited to the Quad’s summits. Its formal agenda has become more focused on things such as vaccine roll-outs and how best to help after natural disasters. At the meeting on September 21st leaders said they would do more to prevent cervical cancer in Asia.
The thinking seems to be that assuming a softer mantle will earn the grouping approval from governments in the region that are sceptical of it. And Dhruva Jaishankar of the Observer Research Foundation, an Indian think-tank, notes that some of the Quad’s projects are “defence-adjacent”, such as an effort to provide other governments with satellite imagery that can track ships in their waters, and a new programme to manufacture semiconductors for military purposes in India.
But critics of the Quad’s new look, such as Raji Pillai of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, another think-tank, say its activities do not match the moment. They say that with China harassing its neighbours in the South China Sea, the East China Sea, and above all around Taiwan, the Quad must refocus its energies on maritime security. The Delaware summiteers condemned rising tensions in a statement released after their summit (which they grandiosely named “The Wilmington Declaration”, after Mr Biden’s home town). But they did so without calling China out by name—even though Mr Biden was caught on a hot mic telling his counterparts that “China is testing us”.
Kishida Fumio, Japan’s prime minister, will not sit that test; he is due to leave office on October 1st. Mr Biden will follow in January. And Anthony Albanese is facing a tough fight in the Australian election due next year. Only Narendra Modi, recently re-elected at the head of a coalition government, is sure to hang around. Next year he will finally get his chance to host the Quad in India. The new faces around that table will have to make some decisions about what exactly they want the outfit to be.