Quad enlarges space for India

The sixth quad summit was held in US President Biden's hometown, Wilmington, Delaware as a tribute to him. The summit was a befitting occasion to express goodbye to Biden and Kishida, whose terms of office will end before the next summit in India in 2025. It was also an occasion to understand how India is playing a bigger role integrated into the Quad.

PM Modi is the seniormost leader among the Quad. It was gracious of India to have allowed the US to host the 2024 Summit, which was allotted to India. Now, New Delhi will host the 2025 Summit. It would be a readymade program for the new US president to visit India in their first year. Quad provides India more opportunities to meet with strategic partners annually. The Quad summit is a useful aggregation for India when, for instance, it attends the BRICS summit or holds the annual summit with Russia.

Politically, there are three important takeaways for India from this Quad Summit. First, the US has come around to recognizing that the UN and its security council need reform beyond what the US thought necessary. The Declaration talks about broad-based representation in the UN Security Council and the US is now more ready to support India and Japan.

Secondly, the Quad counter-terrorism working group met for the first time last year and will meet annually. Mitigating terrorism through information sharing, use of unmanned systems and finding new lines of collaboration are all good news for India, which has for long sought the US and its allies to take terrorism threats more seriously.

The third aspect is that without militarising the Quad, India has yet joined in efforts to have common understanding on maritime security. Working through a host of initiatives, Quad is expanding cooperation in maritime domain awareness, collaboration among coastguards, and increasing efforts for quicker and more effective HADR. India is now a clear partner of such Quad initiatives, and not just a recipient of support.

The Quad has positioned itself as a challenge to the Chinese view of the region. It engages ASEAN, the Pacific Islands Forum and the IORA for better and sustainable development. Thus, the Quad supports the free and open Indo-Pacific and check China's aggressive manoeuvres, which is India's aim as well.

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There are areas in which India is now directly contributing, and these need to be highlighted. The Quad Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA) has performed well in raising awareness. Information is now collected and shared with greater frequency among the 24 countries who are currently benefiting. The Information Fusion Centre for the Indian Ocean region in Gurugram, India is an indispensable part, particularly in dealing with countries of the IORA, in which India’s leadership is recognised. India will chair IORA in 2025.

India's view of the Indo-Pacific as including the Indian Ocean up to the shores of Africa is now better accepted. The US will work through its Central Command and AFRICOM, with Quad partners in the Indian Ocean and in Africa. A new maritime initiative for training in the Indo-Pacific ‘MAITRI’ will bring capacity-building efforts into the IPMDA. India will contribute trainings under ITEC program to countries in IOR.

The health sector brought vaccine diplomacy and a Quad Health Partnership. India has been at the fulcrum of the vaccine manufacturing. Further efforts to create vaccines for mpox and future pandemics would utilize Indian capabilities. India is contributing to the Cancer Moonshot dealing with cervical cancer. The Serum Institute of India, in partnership with Gavi, will support 40 million HPV vaccine doses. India will provide HPV sampling kits, and cervical cancer vaccines worth $7.5 million to the region. Through its $10 million commitment to the WHO’s Global Initiative on Digital Health, India will offer technical assistance to interested countries for the adoption of its Digital Public Infrastructure that helps in cancer screening.

Infrastructure is an area where the Quad lags China. Various initiatives among India-Japan- US, the Japan-US- Australia or the G7 have not borne much fruit. China's BRI remains the dominant theme for infrastructure development in the
region. Now the Quad is taking shorter steps towards quality infrastructure and three elements with Indian participation are visible.

Cable connectivity through a resilient partnership tasks Quad countries to provide maritime cable networks away from Chinese control. India has commissioned a feasibility study to determine how maritime cable networks can be facilitated by aggregating maintenance and repair capacities of the Quad partners in the Indo-Pacific. This will prevent vulnerabilities hitting the proposed networks and provide them with durability and reliability.

A Quad Ports of the Future Partnership aims to develop port infrastructure across the Indo-Pacific. This will challenge Chinese domination of new ports in ASEAN countries, in Sri Lanka, Pakistan and in Africa, but would require considerable effort and investment. India will start this with a Quad regional ports and transportation conference in Mumbai in 2025. This would seek commonalities, resources and include the private sector to build effective port infrastructure ahead. The launch of a Quad Indo Pacific logistics network pilot project will support the ports initiative, as well as the HADR efforts.

The Quad infrastructure fellowships have started well and now cover 2200 experts. They will now work more closely with the India-led Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure, particularly to enhance power sector resilience.

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The Quad is focusing more on critical and emerging technologies and India's interest in this is stoked by the emphasis on semiconductors, where complementarities are leveraged to create competition and add resilience to Quad's semiconductor supply chain.

To support climate and clean energy, India committed to invest $ 2 million in new solar projects in the island countries of Fiji in the South Pacific, and Comoros, Madagascar and Seychelles in the Indian Ocean. The US has provided a $250 million DFC loan to Tata Power Solar to create a solar cell manufacturing facility. A similar loan of $500 billion, to First Solar to build a 3.3 GW solar module manufacturing facility in India is also mentioned in the Wilmington Declaration. 

Indian capabilities are now much better leveraged and integrated into the growing Quad functional collaboration matrix. As a developing country, India uses its development cooperation experience to advance Quad as a Global Force for Good.

Disclaimer: The views of the writer do not represent the views of WION or ZMCL. Nor does WION or ZMCL endorse the views of the writer.