A Japanese expert on international relations and national defense recently authored an article discussing India’s growing significance within the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QSD), commonly known as the Quad, and what India may expect from it.
Quad is a strategic security dialogue between Australia, India, Japan, and the United States. Leaders of the four countries have strengthened their cooperation over the past three years. They have become more aligned in their shared concerns about communist China’s increasingly assertive behavior in the Indo-Pacific region.
West Seeks to Strengthen Alliance with India
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said in a speech in the Indian capital of New Delhi on March 20 that India is an indispensable partner for Japan and the United States. Mr. Ito offered his analysis of why this is the case, noting that India is now the world’s most populous country, with the world’s fifth largest GDP, and shares the same democratic values with the United States and Japan, making it an Indo-Pacific stronghold from a geopolitical point of view. In addition, India’s economic and military power is growing rapidly.“Now, when Western leaders emphasize its importance, they undoubtedly have in mind the presence of a rising and assertive China, even if they do not say so publicly. A fast-growing China is beginning to shake the United States and the existing order,” Mr. Ito wrote.
“To meet this challenge, the United States and Japan alone are no longer enough. Therefore, let’s draw in another emerging power next to China, India. Such ideas exist in the bilateral strategic relationship with India, in the Quad framework, or in the G-7,” he wrote.
The Quad strategic dialogue was first proposed by former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2006.
As for India, it sees China as a threat and has a largely antagonistic relationship with Beijing, especially over unresolved border disputes. In 1962, India lost a border war with China, and subsequent negotiations did not resolve the dispute. Since Xi Jinping came to power, the Chinese military’s incursions into India’s territory have become increasingly aggressive.
In his article, Mr. Ito recounted the fallouts from the June 2020 China-India border clash in India’s Garhwal Valley, when Chinese soldiers attacked Indian soldiers with clubs, killing 20.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi subsequently banned the use of Chinese Apps in India, imposed restrictions on Chinese investment in Indian companies, and conducted tax investigations into Chinese companies.
According to a poll conducted by India Today in January, 78 percent of the public in India supported the Modi government’s policy towards China, while 55 percent believed there would be another war with the Chinese regime.
India has stopped issuing and extending visas to Chinese journalists, and China countered by doing the same. By June, China and India had no journalists in each other’s countries.
In addition, India is wary of the growing economic, political, and military influence of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in South Asia and the Indian Ocean in recent years. This trend has become even more amplified since the implementation of China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
In Sri Lanka, the Hambantota International Port, a deep water port of strategic importance in trade, has been leased to China for 99 years. In Bangladesh, most of the weapons are made in China; in Maldives, the former dictator Abdulla Yameen’s massive infrastructural program was built on loans from the Chinese regime and often shut out Indian companies and military aid.
For India, reclaiming its regional dominance is its top diplomatic priority.
“In terms of border issues and China’s penetration of influence in India’s neighbors, in my view, India’s expectations for the Quad are shifting to the latter,” Mr. Ito wrote. “The Quad is not a ’military alliance,' and the three ’maritime nations’ of Japan, the United States, and Australia other than India would not want to be involved in an emergency on India’s land border ... India is well aware that the Quad will focus on the Indo-Pacific.”
Lead up to Hiroshima G-7 Summit
India participated in a Quad summit in March and as talks with the Chinese regime on troop withdrawals continued, India hinted to China that it would strengthen the quadrilateral dialogue mechanism. However, the CCP did not budge. As a result, there were doubts about the effectiveness of the Quad as a political and diplomatic deterrent to China’s military aggression against India, and there were also fears that the Quad strategy would further anger the CCP and potentially exacerbate its expansionist ambitions.After the China-India border skirmishes in 2020, the United States provided India with information on the movements of the Chinese army. Therefore, Mr. Ito believes that in the future, to enhance the combat power of the Indian army in an emergency, it is possible for the United States to send weapons to India or even to develop and produce weapons jointly, but this will not be done within the framework of the Quad as it will have to be confined to the two countries.
Japan, the United States, and Australia are fully aware of the need to counter the CCP’s influence in the countries surrounding India. Mr. Ito said that it is particularly concerning that the Chinese regime is colluding with military and authoritarian regimes in Indo-Pacific countries to build ports that can be used for military purposes, which could threaten the security of major shipping routes. As more and more countries, such as Sri Lanka, default on their huge debts to China, the Western world will naturally be affected.
Reorganizing Industrial Supply Chains
Mr. Ito said that during the COVID-19 pandemic and the military confrontation with the CCP, the Modi government had developed high hopes for the Quad framework.Despite India’s growing concerns about China after the border clashes, imports from China in 2021 and 2022 were at an all-time high. This was due to the second wave of the virus hitting India in the spring of 2021 and the healthcare system collapsing. India had no choice but to rely on Chinese-made oxygen concentrators.
In addition, although India has levied tariffs on some Chinese-made electronic devices such as smartphones, most semiconductors, displays, sensors, and other materials and components are still dependent on China.
“Therefore, the Modi administration began to make serious efforts to build supply chains away from China. Both the G-7 and the Quad have recognized this as the most important issue, even though the expression has been replaced by ‘derisking’ instead of ‘decoupling’ since the Hiroshima summit, and efforts are underway. In particular, on supply chains for critical and emerging technologies, a joint working group was launched in the Quad,” Mr. Ito wrote.
At the Quad summit in Tokyo in May 2022, Mr. Modi announced his participation in the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) supported by President Joe Biden and said that he looked forward to the formation of strong industrial chains.
As such, India has begun to seriously seek cooperation within the Quad framework to counter the CCP on a non-military level. Mr. Ito believes that this is where the interests of Japan, the United States, Australia, and India are most aligned.
