Is the Quad becoming irrelevant as a group?

Only a few years ago, the Quad made up of the United States, India, Japan and Australia was at the heart of Washington’s efforts to counter China. But as its foreign ministers meet today, the group is at risk of fading into irrelevance.Quad pro quo?When US secretary of state Marco Rubio meets his Indian, Japanese and Australian counterparts in New Delhi today, he will try to reassure them that Donald Trump still values the formation known as the Quad. But the US president has not attended a leaders’ meeting of the group since returning to the White House and it did not get a mention in his latest National Defence Strategy.The Quad emerged from a joint effort between the four countries to provide humanitarian and disaster aid after the 2004 tsunami in southeast Asia. Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe formalised it in 2007 as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, calling for a “democratic security diamond” linking the Indian and Pacific Oceans.Washington liked the idea of a strategic counterweight to Beijing but the Quad faltered in 2008 when Kevin Rudd pulled Australia out, anxious about his country’s business interests in China. It remained dormant for almost a decade until it was revived in 2017 during Trump’s first term amid a changed regional strategic environment.China was expanding its military presence in the South China Sea, often in waters that were disputed with its neighbours, while its Belt and Road Initiative was extending Beijing’s economic influence. Trump embraced Japan’s concept of a “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” and Washington’s relations with New Delhi flourished as the president’s friendship with Narendra Modi appeared to deepen.Joe Biden embraced the Quad as an expression of what he saw as a global contest between democracies led by the US and its allies and autocracies led by China and Russia. Washington saw the Quad as a mechanism for binding India more closely into the US-led camp and nurturing it as a counterweight to China in Asia.The group sought to move beyond security by working together to provide public goods such as vaccines, clean energy and infrastructure. But after years of talking, no infrastructure has been built, a clean hydrogen project has stalled and a vaccine initiative produced only half the target number of doses.Trump has shown little interest in the Quad since returning to the White House and his Liberation Day tariffs hit India and Japan hard, while China’s tough response won his respect and an eagerness to make friends with Xi Jinping. Modi postponed indefinitely last year’s Quad leaders’ meeting amid tensions with Trump over tariffs, Russian oil purchases and the US president’s claim to have brokered an end to India’s conflict with Pakistan last year.Rubio has suggested that the Quad could collaborate on critical minerals supply chains, one of Washington’s priorities in its competition with China, and he hopes to pave the way for Trump’s participation in a leaders’ summit in the future. But that may not be enough to halt the group’s slide into irrelevance, which reflects the diverging interests of its biggest members, the US and India.Washington has shifted its strategic focus away from the broader Indo-Pacific region to the so-called First Island Chain that runs through Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines. The US has expanded its military presence in the Philippines under Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos while Tokyo and Manila have deepened their defence co-operation.A new grouping known as the Squad emerged three years ago, made up of the US, Japan, Australia and the Philippines. It is focused on hard security, openly identifying China as the threat it is countering, and all its members are formal US allies.Trump’s conduct since returning to the White House has given India pause and reinforced New Delhi’s commitment to its policy of multi-alignment as it stabilises its relationship with Beijing. At today’s meeting, the foreign ministers will talk up the potential of the group but they know too that the geopolitical contest is changing in a way that is leaving the Quad behind.Please let me know what you think and send your comments, thoughts or suggestions for topics you would like to see covered to denis.globalbriefing@irishtimes.com