Why Quad is still not seen as a serious enterprise |
After the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) foreign ministers’ meeting on May 26, the general perception is likely to be that the grouping has shifted from dormancy to near-death. Future summits seem appended to other forums, whenever they occur — pointing to a lack of American interest. Quad has long been a case of fits-and-starts. It saw sterling cooperation after the devastating 2004 tsunami but died out soon after, only to see a strong revival in 2017 due to Chinese aggressiveness in the South China Sea. Now, an extremely unstable world order may lead to what the joint statement from the foreign ministers’ meeting notes as “great challenges, but also unprecedented opportunities” for Quad.
The key to these objectives is embedded in the nature of the Quad structure, which is best described as a la carte, given that these countries have widely different priorities but share broad interests. Quad projects are the sum of each member’s particular strengths, implemented through dozens of countries from the Association of South East Asian Nations(Asean), the Pacific Island Forum, and the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) that lie in the “area of influence” of Quad member-nations and such other forums. For instance, the Quad Satellite Data portal integrates the formidable space resources of members to provide them with data on everything from climate change........