Despite doubts, the Quad is here to stay
DESPITE DOUBTS, THE QUAD IS HERE TO STAY
WRITTEN BY LUCAS MYERS
22 October 2024
At the fourth Quad Leaders’ Summit, held in Delaware in September 2024 at US President Joe Biden’s request, the outgoing president said “The Quad is here to stay”. Yet, the rhetoric out of the Summit belied persistent questions about the Quad’s future.
Disappointment with the Quad’s progress in 2024 among some in the foreign policy community has been palpable. Although the Delaware readout adopted stronger language on security issues than previous Leaders’ statements, it still refrained from naming China directly and its public goods focus is not the security alliance some hoped it would be. The Summit’s circumstances have also raised questions; it was India’s turn to host, but its election and an eventful US electoral season rendered a New Delhi meeting improbable. As an alternative, the US offered to host at Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, in conjunction with the UN meetings in nearby New York. This is not the first time this has happened. In 2023, the grouping hastily convened in Japan instead of Australia due to US scheduling conflicts. Two years of difficult scheduling raises concerns about long-term commitment, especially because it was the US that again upended the schedule.
The ongoing leadership transitions in Quad member states amplify the uncertainty, with President Biden finishing his term in January and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida replaced by Shigeru Ishiba, who faces a challenging election on 27 October. This brings back painful memories of how the original 2004-2008 iteration of the Quad collapsed when Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd took over and withdrew to mollify China.
The Quad’s role is clearer in 2024 than in 2017 or 2007. It coordinates and ensures the provision of public goods in an era of great power competition that is about much more than just traditional hard power security.
However, since its revival in 2017, the Quad’s trajectory remains positive, and the grouping is likely to continue building out new initiatives and deliverables. Despite its deliberate pace, the Quad is more than just a “talk shop”; it is founded upon a shared strategic alignment on the need to counter China that will likely continue regardless of who is the next US president.
The Quad’s questions in 2024: China and public goods
Two intertwined questions are troubling the Quad: how much is it about China? Is its public goods agenda effective?
In public settings, government officials in all four countries are adamant that the grouping is about public goods for the Indo-Pacific, and is not a counter-China coalition. The group does not name Beijing directly. This is deliberate, both to accommodate Australia, India, and Japan with their unwillingness to directly name-and-shame China and avoid alienating partners in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. However, since it is quite apparent that China provides the strategic impetus behind greater Quad cooperation, disconnects between public messaging and private assumption can raise obvious questions about the Quad’s purpose.
Moreover, the question, “Is the Quad’s public goods agenda even effective?”, is all too common, as its public goods provision has been somewhat disappointing for many in the region. The Quad may present itself as a “force for good” in the Indo-Pacific and as an implicit alternative to Chinese offerings, but it has largely fallen short in its promises. As of 2024, big-ticket infrastructure or other highly visible deliverables are few and far between. For instance, its flagship vaccine program came late and under target, delivering 400 million doses. The Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA) only offers commercial, not intelligence, satellite data to its partners. The primary infrastructure deliverables as of 2024 are a fellowship program for engineers hailing from the region and USD 140 million for undersea cables, as well as an Open RAN network in Palau. These are valuable, but not game-changing.
By comparison, China’s Belt and Road Initiative may be slowing down and angering some partners, but the Quad’s public goods are simply not enough to offset China’s economic dominance in the Indo-Pacific. China is the dominant trade partner throughout much of the Indo-Pacific and actively promotes itself as a leader for a Global South dissatisfied with the rules-based order that the Quad hopes to uphold. Comparing the dollar amounts of key deliverables can be illustrative. The Quad’s 2024 Summit readout announced USD 140 million in commitments for undersea cables, while China has plans for a USD 500 million cable network. To be sure, while the individual Quad members are committed to more substantial unilateral or multilateral infrastructure projects outside of the grouping, the Quad itself is not yet committing as a group the kind of financial and material resources to truly challenge China’s growing economic and political position.
The longer-term upside
However, giving the Quad a poor grade in 2024 does not mean that the institution should be abandoned in 2025, nor that it is ignoring the China threat or is a failure as a public goods provider. The Quad is laying the groundwork for a competition that is likely to be measured in decades, not years. It needs time to generate momentum and find out what works and what does not.
During the Delaware Summit, Biden’s private remarks about China “testing us all” were caught on a hot mic. This made public the already obvious to anyone parsing the readout: “[The Quad being] seriously concerned about the situation in the East and South China Seas” can only be referring to Beijing. The Quad may not be about countering China in the security space, but it is about upholding the rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific. The biggest threat to said order is China, making its public goods offering a counteroffer of sorts to the region. As such, Biden’s words are far from revelatory. It is clear and well-understood that the Quad is about providing an alternative to China in the public goods department. For both domestic political reasons and stronger international relations with non-Quad countries, trumpeting anti-China rhetoric would be counterproductive and unnecessary.
Moreover, a public goods focus makes sense considering that traditional security cooperation is well-covered in the Indo-Pacific. The US-centered alliance system already crisscrosses the Western Pacific and has moved past the old “hub-and-spoke” model under the Biden administration’s “latticework” concept. India, given its valued strategic autonomy, is unlikely to ever enter into a formal alliance with the United States or the other Quad members. Newer security minilaterals like AUKUS and the Squad, far from detracting from the Quad, complement it because they focus narrowly on traditional security issues where India would feel uncomfortable. Indeed, the Indian government’s and Biden administration’s negative reactions to new Japanese Prime Minister Ishiba’s preference for an “Asian NATO” demonstrate how little appetite exists for new mutual defence treaties in the Indo-Pacific. With this in mind, the Quad’s role in great power competition is to address public goods and incorporate India into the pro-rules-based order coalition on those issues, not add to US-centric security architecture.
In a positive sign that the Quad's problems are surmountable, it did not miss its 2024 Summit after all, and its agenda continues to develop. For instance, the grouping announced that Australian, Indian, and Japanese officers would join a US Coast Guard vessel in the region. This may be a small and seemingly insignificant step, but it’s a sign that the Quad countries are collaborating closer in ways that will reap benefits in interoperability and shore up maritime security, a particular area of Quad concern.
It also remains a nimble and useful mechanism for multilateral cooperation. Annual face-to-face meetings at the foreign minister and leader level are important for strategic coordination. This also holds for lower-level officials. As a government official in Australia told me in early 2024, the Quad’s foreign ministries are in constant contact with each other. Coordinating on deliverables builds muscle memory and sets a rhythm and expectation that the four powers can and should work together. This practice appears to have borne fruit: the grouping responded quickly to Papua New Guinea’s landslides in 2024, and the four countries collaborated to support Vietnam after Typhoon Yagi.
Surviving leadership transitions
Apart from the perennial China and effectiveness questions, the bigger issue raised by the 2024 Summit is leadership transition. Back in 2008, the new Australian government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced that it would no longer participate in the Quad. A similar scenario could play out again considering the upcoming US election. However, this concern is overblown. Even after the tumult of leadership turnover, the Quad is likely to continue on its current positive trajectory.
That year and 2024 are vastly different strategic contexts, and it is unlikely that any of the four members will attempt to re-engage China absent momentous shifts in Beijing’s behaviour. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is hyperaware of the need to tackle the encroaching China threat and sees the Quad as integral in doing so. The Albanese government in Australia, despite a less hawkish stance than its predecessor, made attending the 2022 Quad Summit in Tokyo one of its first official duties. New Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s government is likely to continue the previous LDP policy of embracing traditional partners and the United States.
In the United States meanwhile, competition with China is perhaps the most bipartisan issue in American politics. A Harris administration would continue Biden’s focus on alliances and partnerships. A second Trump administration, although potentially more demanding of allied burden sharing, would in all likelihood keep the Quad. It is important to keep in mind that the Quad’s current iteration re-emerged in 2017-20 under the Trump administration. Moreover, some even label the current Republican Party as being “Asia first”, meaning a Republican administration would prioritise competing with China with a laser focus.
The real difference in Quad policy under a Republican White House would likely be a greater willingness to push the boundary on the Quad’s anti-China rhetoric and security deliverables. While there may be some pushback from the other three members, it is also unlikely to mean the end of the grouping. Importantly, the strategic alignment on providing an alternative to China — primarily via public goods provision but also maritime security cooperation — remains firm in all four capitals. The Trump administration itself put forward the Development Finance Corporation to compete with China in the infrastructure space, recognising the need to provide public goods to the region to counter Beijing. Moreover, Trump maintains good relations with Modi, whose government strongly supports the Quad and would advocate heavily for its continuation. Therefore, leadership change in the United States is unlikely to dismantle this Quad.
Here to stay
The Quad may not be what its critics hope for today, but it can play long-term strategic dividends given enough time. The Quad’s role is clearer in 2024 than in 2017 or 2007. It coordinates and ensures the provision of public goods in an era of great power competition that is about much more than just traditional hard power security. China’s challenge to a “free and open Indo-Pacific” extends far beyond the security realm, and a minilateral grouping designed to compete in the public goods realm is valuable.
Importantly, it is evident that all four countries see this value, and there is little indication that a new US president would scrap it. To be sure, other strategic divergences, such as over India’s ties with Russia and the perennial question about its security role may be irksome, but the fundamental fact is that countering the China threat outweighs these other differences. For Australia, India, Japan, and the United States, the Quad is a value add for the Indo-Pacific, not a distraction.
DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.
Author biography
Lucas Myers is a Senior Associate for Southeast Asia with the Indo-Pacific Program at the Wilson Center, where he focuses on Southeast Asia, China, and geopolitics.
The views expressed are the author's own and do not represent the views of the US Government or the Wilson Center. Image credit: Flickr/MEAphotogallery.