{"id":14360,"date":"2021-03-13T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-03-13T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/current_affairs\/uncategorized\/13-03-2021\/first-quad-summit\/"},"modified":"2021-03-13T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-03-13T00:00:00","slug":"first-quad-summit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/13-03-2021\/first-quad-summit","title":{"rendered":"First Quad Summit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>In News:<\/strong> The first Quad summit level talk was recently organised.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Key Highlights<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Participants were the Nation Heads (Prime Minister or Presidents) of all the 4 nations;\n<ul>\n<li>Mr. Modi, PM of India<\/li>\n<li>President Joe Biden of the United States<\/li>\n<li>Japanese Premier Yoshihide Suga<\/li>\n<li>Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Need of cooperation among the member countries to beat the global COVID-19 pandemic, with joint partnership on vaccines.<\/li>\n<li>It also emphasised the need for an \u201c<strong>open\u201d and \u201cfree\u201d Indo-Pacific region<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Renewing our commitment to ensure that our region is governed by international law, committed to upholding universal values and free from coercion.<\/li>\n<li>Quad is a value-based grouping that is trying to deal with the need for vaccines, climate change and other such issues.<\/li>\n<li>Military takeover in Myanmar also came up during the discussion among the leaders.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>About QUAD:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It is also known as Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QSD).<\/li>\n<li>QUAD is an informal group of India, US, Japan and Australia.<\/li>\n<li>It is a strategic dialogue with the objective to ensure a free, open, inclusive and prosperous Indo Pacific.<\/li>\n<li>The idea was first mooted by Japanese PM Shinzo Abe in 2007.\n<ul>\n<li>Although the genesis may be traced back to 2004 Tsunami relief and rescue missions where all four came together.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Shared values<\/strong> between the nations are:\n<ul>\n<li>Political democracies<\/li>\n<li>Market economies<\/li>\n<li>Pluralistic societies<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Backdrop<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Rising Chinese Influence and Assertion in Indo-Pacific<\/li>\n<li>Chinese unilateral claim over Nine-Dash Line and ignorance of International Court of Arbitration Verdict<\/li>\n<li>India China Standoff<\/li>\n<li>Iron fist handling of Hongkong Protests<\/li>\n<li>Imperialistic attitude toward Taiwan.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Foreign ministers of the four countries held their first meeting under the \u2018Quad\u2019 framework in New York in September 2019.<\/li>\n<li>In November 2017, India, Japan, the US and Australia gave shape to the long-pending proposal of setting up the Quad to develop a new strategy to keep the critical sea routes in the Indo-Pacific free of any influence.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Timeline:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>2007:<\/strong> Japanese PM Shinzo Abe mooted the idea of Quadrilateral Security Dialogue\n<ul>\n<li>Could not materialise due to the reluctance of Australia<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>December 2012:<\/strong> Shinzo Abe again initiated a concept of <strong>Asia\u2019s Democratic Security Diamond<\/strong>, involving Australia, India, Japan and the US.\n<ul>\n<li>The aim was to safeguard the maritime commons from the Indian Ocean to the western Pacific.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>2015:<\/strong> Japan joined <strong>Malabar Exercise<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>November 2017:<\/strong> QUAD Coalition was finally given present day form with active participation of India, US, Australia and Japan.\n<ul>\n<li>The aim was to keep critical sea routes open and free for navigation in Indo-Pacific.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Importance of QUAD for India<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Countering Chinese Influence: <\/strong>Recent stand-offs on Indo-China Border and reluctance of Russia to step in and build pressure is forcing India to look for alternatives.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Post COVID Diplomacy: <\/strong>The disruption across the world and non transparent systems of China pose an opportunity for India to take lead and become the World&#8217;s Manufacturing Hub.\n<ul>\n<li>India can leverage its expertise in the vaccine and pharma industry to increase its soft power.<\/li>\n<li>Further, Japan and the US want to shift their manufacturing companies out of China in order to curb its imperialistic behaviour.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Net Security Provider in Indian Ocean:\u00a0 <\/strong>India under the SAGAR initiative wants to become a net security provider in Indian Ocean.\n<ul>\n<li>QUAD cooperation may give India access to multiple strategic locations for creating Naval bases.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Multipolar World: <\/strong>India has supported rule based multipolar world and QUAD can help it in achieving its ambition of becoming regional super power.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Challenges before QUAD<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Formal opposition by China: <\/strong>China has formally intimated its displeasure over the QUAD meetings.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Trade and Supply Chains:<\/strong> As seen recently, China is trying to leverage its position in Trade and Commerce to arm-twist other nations especially China and Japan.\n<ul>\n<li>Recently, MV Anastasia, an Australian coal-carrying ship was stranded for more than a month on the Chinese Coast. Even Indian Sailors got trapped in that.<\/li>\n<li>China threatened to stop the supply of rare earth metals to the Japanese electronic industry.<\/li>\n<li>Corona pandemic disrupted the Global supply chain due to lockdown in China.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Chinese Closeness to ASEAN: <\/strong>With the signing of Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), ASEAN and China have come further close.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Cheque Book Diplomacy of China:<\/strong> The One Belt One Road Initiative, Maritime Silk Route, Unsustainable Debt and Project Fundings, etc are being deployed by China to attract small nations.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Different Aspirations of QUAD Nations:<\/strong> QUAD\u2019s coherence may suffer due to\n<ul>\n<li>India\u2019s bid to balance <strong>QUAD and RIC (Russia, India and China)<\/strong>,<\/li>\n<li>The reluctance shown by Australia for QUAD in past,<\/li>\n<li>Japan and the US are seeking their own economic interests with China.<\/li>\n<li>Also there is a lack of coherence on the definition of Indo-Pacific.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Way Forward<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Strengthening Blue Dot Network:<\/strong> All four countries must pool their resources to check the Economic might of China, rather than just letting it function as a certification agency for infrastructure projects.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Coherent strategy:<\/strong> All the member countries must develop a unified approach to tackle China rather than act in Individual interests.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Formalise the talks: <\/strong>The formalisation may help to give QUAD a more structured format.<\/li>\n<li><strong>QUAD can be an effective tool<\/strong> to counter Chinese adventure and imperialism ambitions in Indo-Pacific.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/national\/first-quad-summit-meeting\/article34054156.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">TH<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In News: The first Quad summit level talk was recently organised. Key Highlights Participants were the Nation Heads (Prime Minister or Presidents) of all the 4 nations; Mr. Modi, PM of India President Joe Biden of the United States Japanese Premier Yoshihide Suga Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison Need of cooperation among the member countries [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14361,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[30,34],"class_list":["post-14360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs","tag-gs-2","tag-india-foreign-relations"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/wp-images.nextias.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/format=auto\/ca\/uploads\/2023\/07\/58187186268277current-affairs.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}