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                                                                                                  November  2, 2020

The Quad: Security Cooperation Among the United States,

Japan, India, and Australia


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In October 2020, in the midst of a global pandemic, U.S.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his three counterparts
from Australia, India, and Japan convened an in-person
meeting in Tokyo. The focus was on boosting the
Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, aka the Quad, a four-
country coalition with a common platform of protecting
freedom of navigation and promoting democratic values in
the region. The gathering released no joint statement, but
Pompeo  stated that the purpose of the group was to protect
our people and partners from the Chinese Communist
Party's exploitation, corruption, and coercion. Although
the three other ministers framed the meeting differently in
their opening statements, fears of China's growing
influence and assertiveness in the region loom large.
Tensions with China have worsened for all four countries in
2020, driving increased defense cooperation among them.
Despite this confluence, the Quad faces major challenges in
defining itself and its goals. Does expanding defense
cooperation provide meaningful strategic advantages? Will
the Quad broaden its activities on democracy promotion? Is
it durable as a framework even in the face of leadership
changes in member  countries? These questions may be of
critical importance to Congress given its oversight
responsibilities, interest in security alliances, and growing
concern about China's power and influence in the region.

Earlier iterations of the Quad faltered. The grouping
originally arose from the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and
tsunami: in the disaster relief effort, the four navies
coordinated, providing inspiration for more maritime
cooperation. In 2007, a series of Quad meetings was
denounced  by China as an attempt to encircle it. The effort
dissipated amidst member leadership transitions, concern
about economic repercussions from China, and attention to
other national interests.

The renewed  effort, begun in 2017, is bringing similar
accusations from Beijing, crystallizing the geopolitical and
economic  risks for the Quad partners. All four members are
heavily reliant on Chinese supply chains, and each of the
four are significantly more economically integrated with
China than with one another, especially India and Japan.
China is the first or second largest trading partner for all
four countries, underscoring the risk of angering Beijing.

For Japan, Australia, and India, alarm about China's
intentions may be coupled with a perception that U.S.
influence in the region is waning. For years, Asian states
have expressed fear that the United States' power is
diminishing in the region. These fears may have been
heightened by Trump's 2016  America First policy,


particularly after the U.S. withdrawal from the proposed
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement.


Skeptics of the Quad earlier pointed to the group's lack of
operationalization. Shortly after the October 2020 meeting
in Tokyo, India announced that Australia would be invited
to join the United States, Japan, and India for the annual
Malabar naval exercises slated for November. The
exercises, originally bilateral between the United States and
India, later added Japan as a permanent member in 2015.
Defense officials say that the exercise could be a potent
war-fighting exercise that deepens trust and interoperability
among  the four militaries in the air and sea domains. All
four militaries operate compatible anti-submarine warfare
systems, making that a promising area of cooperation.

In addition to Malabar, Quad countries are increasing
bilateral, trilateral, and multilateral exercises with one
another that may accelerate the ability of the four countries
to build integrated capabilities. Examples of these exercises
include but are not limited to the India-Australia biennial
AUSINDEX naval exercise,   the Japan-India JIMEX
exercise in the North Arabian Sea, and all four countries in
the large multilateral biennial Rim of the Pacific maritime
warfare exercise. As U.S. treaty allies, Australia and Japan
regularly hold large-scale exercises with the U.S. military.


Critics have pointed to questions about the group's inability
to speak with one voice on regional issues, absence of
democracy  promotion efforts, dearth of joint military
operations, and lack of institutional structure as limits on its
effectiveness. In the past, India and Australia have
expressed wariness of provoking China and cornering it
into a defensive posture. Japan, arguably the country with
the most acute concern about China's rise given the history
of conflict and ongoing territorial disputes in the East China
Sea, has in recent years looked to stabilize relations with
Beijing. Under new leadership since September 2020, Japan
will face choices about how far to push a new framework
that is likely to come under withering criticism from China.

Another critique involves the exclusion of other regional
countries and the potential for marginalization of traditional
bilateral alliances. U.S. treaty ally South Korea is not in the
Quad  despite fitting the description of being a democracy
with maritime interests and growing naval capabilities.
South Korea is likely reluctant to be included in a group
that antagonizes China, but it may also chafe at exclusion.
While the United States professes to support Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)  centrality in regional
multilateral efforts, member countries' varied capabilities


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