The Quad in its current phase of reincarnation is singularly geared to woo India as an ally to outsource the job of countering China - of course at India's own expense, writes Muhammad Mahmood
The Quadrilateral security initiative touted as an initiative of "like-minded'' democracies was first canvassed by Japanese Prime minister Shinzo Abe 2007 to build an anti-China alliance but luck did not favour him much as coincidentally the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) shifted attention to much bigger existential threat that engulfed the global economy. To make the matter worse for Abe two of its proposed members also walked out of the proposed alliance. But after a decade it has now started to take some kind of a shape however tentative that might be. The leaders of four countries met each other individually while their officials met separately as the Quad on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit in Manila in November last year. But the meeting did not produce a joint statement so as not to provoke a hostile response from China. The US even denied that the move was aimed at containing China. But Beijing cautioned them that any attempts at forming a regional security grouping should not target or damage a "third-party interest''. But the reality is the "Quad'' is targeted against China.
To give the ""Quad'' a certain degree of substance a meeting of the naval chiefs of the countries was held in New Delhi in January this year. Indonesia, though not a member of this anti-China strategic and security alliance for unknown reasons, was represented by a diplomat. Commander of the United States Pacific Command (USPACOM), Admiral Harry Harris declared "China is a disruptive transitional force in the Asia-Pacific''. This is not only the view of the USA, but also shared by Australia, India and Japan. Admiral Harris even went further and said "we can not turn blind eye'' to China and other adversaries. Who are these other adversaries? The new US defence strategy document has already spelled them out - they are China and Russia and described them as "revisionist powers''. The document further said the US is facing "growing threats from revisionist powers''. The document also identifies Iran and North Korea as security threats. While the navy chiefs were meeting in New Delhi,; Australian Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull was in Japan. He was firming up his country's defence cooperation with Japan to pose as a counterweight to China.
In Europe also tensions are rising. The British Chief of the General Staff Sir Nick Carter said on the 23rd January, 2018 "we can not afford to sit back'' in the face of Russian military strength. He likened the current situation to the run-up to World War I and added "Our generation has become used to wars of choice since the end of the Cold War. But we may not have a choice about conflict with Russia''. Such a desperate assessment of the global security environment clearly indicates that the USA and its client strategic partner such as the UK are increasingly being constrained by the emerging economic and military powers like China and Russia to undertake unilateral military actions, even violating the UN rules where necessary as happened in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. This is now exemplified in the current stalemate in the Syrian conflict and in Ukraine. With the declining military strength of the USA, the situation is now turning out to be where even some strategic client states themselves are scrambling to get a share of the economic pie at the expense of the patron state - the USA and also going for accommodation with China and Russia. In effect, British Prime Minister Theresa May already said Britain was a "natural partner'' for China's Belt and Road Initiative.
Admiral Harris, who is scheduled to step down from his position as Chief of the Pacific Command position in May this year is likely to continue to play an active role in keeping his role in stirring up anti-China hard line by the Quad as he is now widely tipped as the next US ambassador to Canberra. But the key strategic decision taken by the USA premised on the USA will confront an economically and militarily rising China through military intimidation and threats of war. But waning global and regional position of the USA requires that coalition-building is essential to maintain its hegemony and where possible to out-source the job to currently enlisted long-standing strategic client states such as Australia and Japan and now a hopeful candidate for that status, India which is almost half way there.
The Quad in its current phase of reincarnation is singularly geared to woo India as an ally to outsource the job of countering China - of course at India's own expense. Australia has fought all wars what has been described as "alliance wars'' for the USA from the Korean war to currently 16-year-old war in Afghanistan, so did the UK ( except the Vietnam war). Japan in light of its constitutional constraint, always played an auxiliary role in all these wars bolstering the US and its coalition partners' war efforts providing logistical support. Now Prime Minister Abe is moving full throttle ahead to remove those constitutional restrains to make Japan a full-fledged strategic client state and possibly a lot more which may not bode well for the USA in the future. There is no reason why Japan should not have its own regional ambition independent of the USA in due course of time.
But there remains an untested prospective strategic client state in the Quad - India. President Trump met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Manila on the sidelines of ASEAN meeting in Manila and called him a friend and a "great gentleman'' (Modi was put on a visa ban list by the Bush Administration making him ineligible to enter the USA in the wake of the Muslim massacre in Gujrat in 2002. Modi was Chief Minister of Gujrat at that time and was identified as the principal instigator of the Massacre but President Obama lifted the ban). Modi also reciprocated his sentiment in the similar fashion and also told Trump that India-US ties were becoming broader and deeper. Trump's effusive remarks about Modi and India and very pointed renaming of Asia-Pacific region the Indo-Pacific region are the soft sell to woo India into joining in a US-led strategic coalition to confront a rising China. Trump's Indo-Pacific essentially means India's commitment to the US-led military alliance in the Pacific region without any US reciprocal commitment to India's concerns in its neighbourhood. The same applies to Australia and Japan.
Also there are question marks not so much about India's reliability but its economic and military strength to do its part of the assigned job. India is the seventh largest economy in the world yet it still remains an abysmally poor country with a per capita income of US$1,741. That makes India's ranking in terms of GDP per capita 134 out of 178 countries. One in five Indians is poor and the country accounts for 20.6 per cent of the world's poorest while India's share of world population is 17.5 per cent. Seven hundred thirty-two (732) million Indians (i.e., a little more than half of the country's population) do not have access to toilet topping the global list in this respect. Three hundred (300) million people (close to a quarter of total population) in India do not have access to electricity. According to the Economist, the size of the Indian economy is similar to that of Switzerland or South Korea and only 3.0 per cent of Indians have ever been on board an aeroplane to travel. There are many other economic and social indicators which are not very encouraging for an aspirant regional hegemon, now being propped up by the USA.
Yet Modi seems to have fully embraced a full-cost payment basis membership of this US-led anti- China strategic alliance. He already tried to show his commitment to the alliance by gathering 10 ASEAN leaders in Delhi for the Indian Republic Day celebration in January this year to strengthen Delhi's strategic and economic ties as a part of India's transformation into a front-line state in Washington's military strategic offensive against China.
India prides itself as a functioning democracy but that did not protect the country from widespread extreme poverty, squalor, corruption and social discrimination against the Dalits and religious minorities, especially Muslims, over the last 70 years. In effect, its functioning democracy completely failed to ensure the very basic human rights for the vast majority of its population. The country is also riven by insurgencies and the army and the police regularly resort to extra-judicial killings on a mass scale to supress those insurgencies in various parts of India. The cow protection vigilantes are terrorising in various part of the country and killing people while the police remain silent spectators of those atrocities. Yet it nurtures regional leadership ambition and that leadership ambition under Narendra Modi's government has taken a dangerous turn tinged with radical Hindu nationalist chauvinism.
The reincarnation of the Quad appears to be foundering already. Australia has distanced itself from Trump Administration's declared competition of "great powers''. Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said "We do not see Russia and China as posing a military threat.'' At the same time the Australian government has set up a A$3.8 billion loan fund to boost weapons exports where foreign governments will be eligible to seek loans from the Export Finance and Investment Corporation. Obviously, if the Quad moves on, India will need a lot more of it and India's three Quad partners will be very happy to oblige that. India is now world's one of the major importers of weapons. Japan is also getting very active in getting a share of that pie. Now the Quad has become a rallying point to sell arms to India by quad partners like Australia and Japan. India is already the second largest purchaser of US arms.
Despite all the displays of bonhomie and allegiance to Washington by Australia and Japan, the emerging shifts in the political and strategic tectonic plates suggest, they will readjust their policy parameters as the European powers are doing now. They are just seeking to reposition themselves in a world where their patron state, the USA, is in the declining phase of its hegemonic power and the emerging new global economic and political powers asserting themselves. Modi appears to be backing the wrong horse.
The writer is an independent economic and political analyst.
