On September 21 of this year, a summit meeting of the four countries participating in the Quad configuration was held in Wilmington, Delaware.
The latest Quad summit took place amidst all sorts of uncertainties
However, information soon emerged that these leaders may meet much earlier (in the second half of September), on the sidelines of the next UN General Assembly. The sudden need for an “early” meeting was apparently caused by the rather unexpected end of the political career of US President Joseph Biden, the de factor initiator of the Quad configuration. The event itself was just one manifestation of the rapidly increasing uncertainty in the domestic political environment of the US, the main participant in the grouping.
However, it soon became clear that another member of the configuration, Japan, is going through a period of no less uncertainty. Just two weeks after the above-mentioned ministerial meeting, Fumio Kishida announced his resignation from the leadership of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party of Japan and, consequently, from the post of prime minister. And he now cannot appear in that capacity at the UN General Assembly. And, therefore the planned meeting on the sidelines of that event, at the UN headquarters in New York, had to be abandoned.
Therefore, in order to organize the urgently needed Quad summit at short notice—with two of the participants now no longer real leaders but just sitting out their terms, it was necessary to find a new venue in the US. Wilmington, Delaware, Joe Biden’s home town, was chosen, and the Quad summit at first (misleadingly) appeared to be an insignificant farewell party to mark the retirement from public affairs of half of the participants. But, as it turned out, the very real leaders of India and Australia, Narendra Modi and Anthony Albanese, will have something meaningful to convey to their new colleagues at the next Quad summit.
However, when this will happen remains unclear, as nothing was said about it at the end of the Wilmington summit. It appears that this was also due to political uncertainty already referred to, which is increasing both in the world as a whole and particularly within the main Quad member.
What Wilmington was about
That last observation was illustrated by the group photograph of the participants around the negotiating table. Until now, and regardless of the format of the meeting (during the Covid-19 pandemic they were held by videoconference), there have always been four participant. In Wilmington, however, the US delegation was led not only by Joe Biden, still officially in office, but also by the current US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken. That is, five people sat at the center table this time, although the configuration itself remained “four-sided.”
The main results of the one-day meeting between the “five” participants in the latest Quad summit are outlined in an extensive White House Fact Sheet. This document must have been worked on (most likely for several weeks) by experienced specialists, who clearly, so to speak, have their fingers in all sorts of pies. There are no “minor” sections in it and anyone interested in the way global processes are unfolding will find it worthwhile to read through the document in its entirety. Let us also not forget that the event under discussion was attended by representatives of the US, India and Japan, all of which are part of the (informal) pool of leading global players.
Therefore, it would be worse than useless to try and “summarize the main content” of this kind of document. One can only note its general focus on, shall we say, comprehensively taking over the initiative in the Indo-Pacific region from China with its far-reaching Belt and Road Initiative (although China is not explicitly mentioned in the document).
For example, the authors of the document emphasize the particular importance of various aspects of the reliable functioning of a range of marine infrastructure (both surface and underwater) which is continually growing and becoming technologically more complex. This is indeed a critical problem of global scale, which extends far beyond the (highly debatable) boundaries of the Indo-Pacific region.
Meanwhile, two years ago, a precedent was set for ignoring this infrastructure when the Nord Stream 2 pipeline was blown up (which, of course, is not mentioned in the Fact Sheet). The scale and various dangerous consequences of what happened then, it would seem, have been underestimated until now, and those directly and indirectly responsible find themselves in an extremely unpleasant situation from which there is no easy way out. But in order to prevent that precedent from being repeated, i.e. to ensure it does not inspire some potential imitators, those responsible need to incur the inevitable political, financial, moral and other consequences (for example, to be found liable by a court).
A set of measures to resolve the various consequences of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline explosion could become an important element of a future (“portfolio”) settlement of the entire situation in Europe to the benefit of all the significant players on the continent. In particular, this will render unnecessary the inevitably costly militarization of the continent, which is already beginning to take on the character of paranoia.
Some assessments of the latest summit and the status of the Quad configuration
The Quad summit held in Wilmington provides an appropriate occasion to discuss different views of the nature of the Quad phenomenon itself. The present author does not see any solid evidence of the not infrequent alarmist view that it is “another US-led military-political alliance” aimed at opposing China, and that it is “about to merge with NATO.” And he does not expect any such evidence to appear any time soon.
Although the said “opposition” is certainly very real, it is conducted not so much through the brandishing of weapons (although this tendency is present), but in the realm of the “hearts and minds” of the population in the “Global South” countries, which form a very important part of the Indo-Pacific region. NATO, on the other hand, is a “classic” military-political alliance, something to which Quad is not even close. Incidentally, this, in particular, shows the archaic nature of the former, which has long been out of step with emerging world realities. The NATO dinosaur is in a moribund and comatose state, although probably does not quite realize this yet. The main thing is not to artificially “revive” it, as is often proposed by fairly primitive propaganda.
The Quad configuration is also aimed at winning over “hearts and minds,” thus demonstrating the full adequacy (as far as those same realities are concerned) of the decision makers in the US, which is, as already noted, its leading member and initiator. Nevertheless, certain public figures allegedly representing the US do frequently show themselves, in terms of outward appearances, to be entirely “inadequate.”
The very possibility of turning Quad into something similar to NATO will depend on the nature of further development of relations between each of the participants of this configuration and the main source of their foreign policy concerns. And while nothing in our world can be ruled out, so far such a prospect looks very doubtful.
Let us only point to the fact that for all the Quad members, without exception, China is the main trading partner (if we do not count the EU and ASEAN as fully autonomous international players). There are positive and negative aspects to Beijing’s relations with each of them. The negatives are noticeably more numerous, and almost all of them are political in nature.
But there have also been recent positive developments, especially in China’s relations with Japan and India, and these testify to the ongoing development of the situation in the wider region. For now, let us repeat, it is unclear why this process should suddenly become irreversibly catastrophic.
Especially since the holding of the most recent Quad summit and the document issued on its conclusion were received by China, as was to be expected, with a certain cautious skepticism.
Vladimir Terekhov, expert on the issues of the Asia-Pacific region, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”
