Leaders of India, US, Japan and Australia to hold virtual meet to elevate Quad

Leaders of India, Australia, Japan and the United States are likely to hold a virtual meeting soon to elevate the Quad -- a coalition forged by the four nations -- to counter China in the Indo-Pacific region.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, United States President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison will take part in the virtual meeting which will mark the elevation of the Quad to the level of the Heads of Governments.

It was during a news conference in Sydney on Friday that the Australian Prime Minister confirmed that he was “looking forward” to the first virtual meeting of the leaders of the Quad. He also said that the leaders of the four nations would also hold follow-up “face-to-face” meetings later.

“And of course we’re looking forward to those discussions and follow-up face-to-face meetings as well. This will become a feature of Indo-Pacific engagement,” Morrison said, adding that he already had a bilateral discussion with Biden, Suga and Modi on the role of Quad in the Indo-Pacific.

Read: Biden looks forward to engage with Quad partners in Indo-Pacific soon

“But it's not going to be a big bureaucracy with a big secretariat and those sorts of things,” Morrison said. “It will be four leaders, four countries, working together constructively for the peace, prosperity and stability of the Indo-Pacific, which is good for everyone in the Indo-Pacific,” he added.

The proposal for a virtual meeting of the leaders of the four nations was mooted by the Biden administration last month.

India, Australia, Japan and the US had first launched the Quad in 2007 but the initiative had fizzled out very soon. The four nations, however, re-launched the Quad in Manila in November 2017, ostensibly to create a bulwark of democratic nations to counter expansionist moves of China in the Indo-Pacific region.

The senior diplomats of the four nations had several meetings ever since it was re-launched. It was elevated to the level of Foreign Ministers with a meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in September 2019. The second ministerial meeting was held in Tokyo on October 6 last year and the third one was held virtually on February 18, 2021.

The one Biden, Morrison, Modi and Suga are likely to hold will be the first-ever meeting at the level of the leaders of the four nations.

Read: Quad nations emphasise on respecting territorial integrity and sovereignty

It is, however, unlikely to transform the Quad to a NATO-like entity for the Indo-Pacific region as the erstwhile US administration led by Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump wanted.

The meeting of the Quad Foreign Ministers in Tokyo took place amid China’s growing belligerence, not only along its Line of Actual Control (LAC) with India in eastern Ladakh but also elsewhere in the Indo-Pacific region – the disputed waters of the South China Sea and East China Sea as well as in Taiwan Strait being some examples.

Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wanted to turn the coalition into a formal organization. However, the Trump Administration’s move to formalize and expand the ‘Quad’ and turn it into a NATO-like bloc for the Indo-Pacific region did not succeed as New Delhi was in favour of moving cautiously and was hesitant to join a security architecture that would appear to be overtly adversarial to China.

India was worried about the implication of such a move on its long-standing strategic partnership with Russia which earlier denounced the Quad as a ‘divisive’ and ‘exclusivist’ tool being used by the US to implement its “devious policy” of engaging New Delhi in games against China as well as to undermine Moscow’s close partnership with India.

Read: Biden-Modi phone call a sign of renewed solidarity in Indo-US ties

Besides, the Modi government in New Delhi was also apprehensive about the implication of formalizing Quad on its own negotiation with Beijing to resolve the military stand-off along the LAC. Australia and Japan too were not yet ready to go the whole hog and gang up with the US against China.

The Biden administration too has been focussing on strengthening the Quad but apparently agreed with New Delhi, Canberra and Tokyo on treading cautiously, instead of moving expeditiously.