QUAD in the Indo-Pacific: Can Rhetoric Turn into Action in the South China Sea?

• Although the four countries have some divergences in their military capabilities, the convergence in their willingness to come together for acts of power projection matters more.
• The outcome can go two ways: either India can revise its traditional stance and incorporate the military angle to increase the grouping’s leverage in the Indo-Pacific, thereby reviving the QUAD, or it may continue to put its national interest before the collective interest.
• The summit may conclude with a new technological impetus for existing maritime security systems and reinforce the upcoming Malabar exercises in October.

At a crucial transitional phase in the geopolitical world order challenged by the rise of China, the relevance of the Indo-Pacific is more than ever before. This current tussle of power is visible most in the South China Sea where growing Chinese assertiveness threatens the existing major powers of the region. To balance out the crisis, the QUAD can be an important player, given the potential of its members. However, its inability to implement tangible actions has put its existence into question. Therefore, this article critically analyses QUAD’s purpose, actions, and relevance. 

The upcoming QUAD summit to be held on 21^st September, ahead of UN meetings later this month in Delaware, US, will be significant. Although New Delhi missed the chance to host due to scheduling clashes, what concerns India wishes to take up in the official agenda and whether they address the challenges faced by the Indo-Pacific grouping today, will be open to scrutiny. 

The QUAD rhetoric on the South China Sea

Lately, much debate has unfolded on the exact role of the grouping within the academic world and in global politics. While the true purpose of its formation in 2006, resumption in 2017, and upgradation to a ministerial level in 2019 culminating at the Summit level in 2021 is no secret, the question today is regarding its relevance. Regardless of the hermeneutics used to describe the raison d’être of the grouping, the primary area of convergence of the four members is the maritime security of the Indo-Pacific. Given the rising Chinese engagements in the region, the focus is mainly on the South China Sea. However, joint statements of most QUAD summits only verbally ascertain their displeasure towards the developments in the Indo-Pacific but fall short of following up with consequential action on the ground.  

Every QUAD summit addresses the South China Sea question. At the recent Foreign Minsters summit held in Tokyo, the joint statement released expressed “serious concern about the militarisation of disputed features, and coercive and intimidating manoeuvres in the South China Sea”. It also reaffirmed “the Quad’s steadfast commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific, which is inclusive and resilient, and… commitment to upholding the free and open rules-based international order.” The ministers also referred to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) governing international maritime law, as a necessary commitment to be observed by all countries. This is a jibe at the “unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo by force or coercion” in the South China Sea. “The overall messaging”, as reiterated by the Indian External Affairs Minister, S. Jaishankar at a previous QUAD summit, “is that our four countries… are working together for a free and open Indo-Pacific, for a rules-based order and for global good.”

Why are QUAD members concerned about the South China Sea?

If there is so much talk, the South China Sea issue is, evidently, a major bone of contention for all the QUAD members. Thus, it begs the question of why they are so vested in the region and how far their concerns converge. India’s key interest lies in maintaining its dominance in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) which has been its traditional sphere of influence. Therefore, as rising tensions in the South China Sea hold the possibility of spilling over into the IOR, India looks to increase its involvement in the region to contain that threat. For Australia, however, the concern is primarily economic. The country’s economic growth hugely relies on global shipping in the Indo-Pacific. As one of the choke points of the Indo-Pacific, any threat to the free flow of trade and navigation in the South China Sea has dire consequences for its GDP. As for the USA, the growing Chinese assertion of the South China Sea undermines its geopolitical interests in the western Pacific. Being the leader of the regional order through alliances with Japan and South Korea, it is concerned about the challenge to its hegemony if smaller regional countries gravitate towards China, the challenger of the region’s Thucydides Trap. Meanwhile, Japan’s concerns are both economic and strategic. Like Australia, it is interested in the free flow of maritime trade in the South China Sea. However, an added layer of worry for Japan is also the East China Sea where it has bilateral disputes with China over the Senkaku Islands. 

Japan’s interests directly converge with another concerned player in the region, the Philippines, whose proximity to the East China Sea makes it the most vulnerable to changes therein. With time, the Filipino security dilemma has brought it close to forming an alleged “New QUAD”. All four QUAD members are extending aid to the Philippines: Australia has deployed military forces there, the USA has pledged $500 million to modernize the Philippines’ military, Japan too has deployed fighter jets and naval ships, and India has delivered its Brahmos missiles. 

All these developments reflect the QUAD countries’ threat perception in the South China Sea. While some actions are visible such as sending support to the Philippines, most QUAD summits seemingly end only in the reiteration of rhetoric. Thus, the question of the hour is, can the QUAD walk the talk?

Critical analysis of the QUAD: Is it walking the South China Sea talk?

While the QUAD is successful in its initiatives in cyber security, investment in critical technologies, and connectivity infrastructure development, it often faces public backlash for being a let-down in the maritime domain. However, a critical analysis of the steps taken by the grouping is needed to evaluate how successful the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue has been in addressing its “security dilemma” posed by Chinese assertion in the South China Sea. 

Although the four countries have some divergences in their military capabilities, the convergence in their willingness to come together for acts of power projection matters more. In international relations, often creating a perception of power has a greater impact than simply having power potential. This has essentially been the grouping’s aim through the joint Malabar exercises: a display of power to deter China in the Indo-Pacific. Although it began as a bilateral exercise between India and the USA in 1992, Malabar became a trilateral exercise in 2015 with the inclusion of Japan as a permanent member. In 2020, Australia joined in, and since then the Malabar exercises have become the primary feature of QUAD’s strategic outreach. As of now, with no plan to include a fifth country, the 28^th edition of the annual Malabar exercises is projected to be conducted in the following month with a focus on advanced anti-submarine warfare. Whether it will have any repercussions in the South China Sea remains to be seen. 

The other tangible maritime security initiative taken by QUAD is the Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA), introduced in May 2022. To monitor dark shipping, i.e. vessels that turn off their automatic identification systems (AIS), this comprehensive security system seeks to integrate South East Asia, the Pacific Islands, and the IOR to ensure the safety of critical sea lines of communication in the Indo-Pacific. What new technological improvements the IPMDA will incorporate will be known only after the 21^st September Summit. 

Thus, when the Indian External Affairs Minister, S. Jaishankar, reiterated that “QUAD is not just a talk shop,” at the 2024 Foreign Ministers Summit, the statement did have actions to back its words. However, both the public and the three other QUAD members share the sentiment that QUAD is still under-delivering its potential in countering Chinese maritime rise.

While the USA, Japan, and Australia are open to elevating the strategic status of the grouping, India’s reluctance to label the QUAD as a military partnership is criticized as being a major cause for holding it back from taking more tangible security measures. Perhaps this is a reason why the USA and Australia along with the United Kingdom formed a parallel security partnership, AUKUS, in 2021 that is less hesitant to spell out its true intentions, even including nuclear-powered submarines in its initiatives. 

Regardless of the reason, India is entitled to have its own foreign policy goal of refraining from leaning into the military aspect of the QUAD. Since foreign policy is a choice of both ends and means, countries cannot be expected to have the same ends or the same means even within a grouping. It might be within India’s national interest to have a more strategically autonomic approach to the QUAD and prioritize its rise to power in the IOR. These ends need not meet with that of the other QUAD members. However, as far as the QUAD is concerned, India’s motives inhibit it from taking more concrete steps that may create higher deterrence against China.

What to look out for in the upcoming QUAD summit on 21 September 2024? 

The upcoming QUAD summit on 21^st September will certainly cover topics of cybersecurity, communication, and other joint ventures but the area to look out for is the talks on maritime security cooperation. Will it mainly be a continuation of the rhetoric or will it also be backed by more tangible strategic outcomes? As the host, it will be up to the US to steer the discussions but India’s involvement can effect the outcome. The outcome can go two ways: either India can revise its traditional stance and incorporate the military angle to increase the grouping’s leverage in the Indo-Pacific, thereby reviving the QUAD, or it may continue to put its national interest before the collective interest. The latter is more probable, thus continuing the status quo of the grouping and raising the question of its relevance. 

At the most, the summit may conclude with a new technological impetus for existing maritime security systems and reinforce the upcoming Malabar exercises in October. Thus, it would be up to member countries to take forward their agendas to militarily empower Southeast Asian nations through bilateral agreements instead of relying on the QUAD to tackle their South China Sea dilemma. 

_{(Bishwarupa Kar is a post-graduate student at the Department of Politics and International Studies, Pondicherry University. Her areas of interest include India and the Global South, Climate Change, Terrorism and Counterterrorism, Polar studies, and Theories of International Relations. Views expressed are the author’s own)}

Bishwarupa Kar