Tue, Jun 02, 2026 page8

• Quad FMs set tone of continuity

  • By Gurjit Singh
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  The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in New Delhi on Tuesday last week was an important, carefully calibrated effort to restore strategic momentum to the grouping of Australia, India, Japan and the US when doubts about its cohesion were emerging. The skepticism preceding the meeting was substantial. The absence of a Quad leaders’ summit last year, uncertainty over the White House’s Indo-Pacific commitment, tensions between India and the US over tariffs and strategic divergences, and signs of a limited US appetite for high-visibility multilateralism had generated speculation that the Quad was stagnating.

  The New Delhi meeting was significant for its attempt to institutionalize cooperation in practical sectors. The outcomes demonstrated that the Quad is evolving from a politically symbolic coalition into a functional strategic mechanism focused on supply chains, maritime security, infrastructure, energy resilience and critical technologies.

  A notable feature was the shift toward economic-security integration. The Quad Critical Minerals Initiative Framework represented the clearest acknowledgement yet that the Indo-Pacific competition is no longer merely military, but increasingly industrial and technological.

  The Quad committed to cooperate on mining, processing, recycling and supply-chain resilience for critical minerals. This is consequential as China dominates global processing capacities for rare earths and inputs essential for semiconductors, batteries, renewable energy systems and defense technologies.

  For India, the initiative carries major strategic implications, because, despite its ambitions in electronics manufacturing, clean energy and defense production, India remains dependent on Chinese-controlled mineral supply chains. The framework could enable India to connect Australian mineral resources, Japanese technology and US financing into a diversified ecosystem. The Quad is beginning to function as a geo-economic balancing mechanism against Chinese industrial leverage.

  Similarly, the Quad Statement on Indo-Pacific Energy Security reflected the impact of the worsening global geopolitical climate, especially the disruptions linked to the Iran conflict and maritime insecurity around key chokepoints. Discussions reportedly focused on energy flows, fertilizer availability, supply-chain vulnerabilities and connectivity bottlenecks. The emphasis on energy resilience signaled that the Quad increasingly sees economic stability and maritime security as inseparable.

  The proposal for the Indo-Pacific Maritime Surveillance Collaboration and efforts toward a “Common Operational Picture” indicate that the Quad is steadily deepening operational coordination at sea. Rather than forming a formal military alliance, it appears to be pursuing interoperability through information-sharing, maritime domain awareness, logistics cooperation, undersea cable protection and humanitarian assistance coordination.

  Importantly, the Quad’s first joint infrastructure project, a port development in Fiji, might prove strategically more consequential than it appears. The Pacific islands are an arena of geopolitical competition between China and Western-aligned powers. By jointly supporting port infrastructure, the Quad is demonstrating that it can provide tangible regional public goods rather than acting as a security dialogue. That helps counter persistent ASEAN and Pacific concerns that the Quad is overly militarized or anti-China in orientation.

  Yet despite these achievements, the meeting also exposed the Quad’s continuing limitations.

  First, the Quad struggles with strategic asymmetry among its members. India sees the Quad as a flexible strategic platform that enhances its leverage while preserving strategic autonomy. Japan and Australia are treaty allies of the US and often view the Quad through a more alliance-oriented lens. The US itself oscillates between treating the Quad as a central Indo-Pacific instrument and subordinating it to bilateral priorities or domestic political calculations.

  This inconsistency partly explains the skepticism surrounding the meeting. Even though US Secretary of State Marco Rubio reaffirmed the Quad’s importance, doubts persist about whether Washington is prepared to sustain the diplomatic and economic investments required for Indo-Pacific coalition-building.

  The absence of a leaders’ summit last year created the impression that the Quad’s political momentum had weakened. In diplomacy, symbolism matters. Summits signal prioritization, and their absence inevitably fed perceptions of drift.

  Second, the Quad avoids explicit institutionalization. That flexibility allows members to cooperate without treaty obligations; it also limits coherence. The most recent meeting produced frameworks, initiatives and statements, but implementation remains the crucial test. Previous announcements on vaccines, infrastructure and emerging technologies struggled to make an impact due to funding constraints and differing national priorities.

  Third, the Quad’s balancing act regarding China remains delicate. The joint statement criticized coercive behavior, militarization and threats to maritime stability without directly naming Beijing. That ambiguity reflects strategic caution and internal divergence.

  India remains wary of turning the Quad into an overt anti-China alliance, partly because it simultaneously seeks stabilization in its bilateral relationship with Beijing after years of tensions. Australia and Japan are deeply interconnected economically with China, despite security concerns. The US is less interested in provoking China as it seeks a recalibration with Beijing.

  Consequently, the Quad is evolving less into an “Asian NATO” and more into a networked strategic coalition focused on selective balancing. Its strength lies precisely in that ambiguity: It can expand cooperation in critical sectors without triggering the formal alliance anxieties that dominate Asian geopolitics.

  Another important aspect of the meeting was India’s increasingly central role within the Quad architecture. Hosting the ministerial in New Delhi amid broader geopolitical turbulence allowed India to project itself as a stabilizing Indo-Pacific actor capable of convening major powers.

  Indian Minister of External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar’s framing of the Quad as four “maritime democracies” located at different ends of the Indo-Pacific was deliberate. It reinforced India’s vision of the grouping as geographically expansive, multipolar and not merely an extension of US alliance structures.

  India also appears to be steering the Quad toward issues where it can exercise leadership: supply-chain resilience, trusted technologies, maritime security, energy stability and global south engagement. The broadening agenda is politically useful, because it makes the Quad more acceptable to regional states.

  The foreign ministers’ meeting did not eliminate doubts about the Quad’s future. Questions about US strategic consistency, differing threat perceptions among members and the absence of formal institutional structures remain valid. However, the meeting demonstrated that the Quad retains considerable adaptive capacity. Rather than collapsing under geopolitical strain, it is slowly transforming into a practical coalition centered on economic security, maritime resilience and technological cooperation.

  Gurjit Singh is a former Indian ambassador to Germany, Indonesia, ASEAN, Ethiopia and the African Union. He is the author of The Durian Flavour: India and ASEAN After a Decade of Act East Policy.
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