Recently, Prime Minister Modi went to America and met US President Joe Biden face to face for the first time ever. During this meet, the first in-person meeting of the Quad Summit also took place with the USA, Australia, Japan and India. This tour was quite embarrassing for the Indian media. Because the humiliation that the Indian media had to face during this tour, is truly unprecedented. Journalists tried asking people about it but no one could give an answer as to what it really was and even newspapers at that time couldn’t cover this as a news story. But what does 'Quad' mean and what does this Quad Summit mean in terms of geopolitics. Now let's try to understand. The word Quad comes from the word quadrilateral which you have already studied in school, a quadrilateral is a four-sided figure like a rectangle or square. Similarly, the Quad is a geopolitical group for strategic dialogues to take place among four countries namely India, Australia, Japan, and the USA.
There was a terrible underwater earthquake in the Indian Ocean in December 2004. This earthquake was measured at 9.1-9.3 on the scale and was one of the deadliest earthquakes ever recorded. The epicentre of it was near Indonesia and it created a terrible tsunami. This tsunami caused devastation in Tamil Nadu and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India along with the neighbouring countries such as Maldives, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand and even African countries Tanzania, Somalia. Its effects were even seen in South Africa. Millions of people were either killed, injured or went missing because of this tsunami. On December 29th, US President George Bush announced that India, the US, Japan and Australia would be setting up an international coalition together as to coordinate large scale rescue and rehabilitation efforts. The Indian Defence forces played a huge role here as thousands of Army troops, Navy ships and Airforce helicopters worked together to find the missing people and helping the injured along with the help provided from the USA, Australia and Japan. This is how the foundation of the Quad Group was laid.
This Quad group was formally constituted two years later. In December 2006, our Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh accompanied by his wife Mrs Gursharan Kaur and a high-level delegation went on an official visit to Japan. India and Japan issued a joint statement stating that they were willing to start a dialogue with like-minded countries in the Indo-Pacific area.
The Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was the one to voice this idea and truly encourage it and he called it “The Arc of Freedom and Prosperity”. And as all of us know, freedom is something that is against China and is anti-Chinese in itself because the Chinese government is strictly against freedom and since the start of the Quad Group, it was always seen by the geopolitical experts as a countermeasure against China's increasing influence. Although, none of the four countries of the Quad have openly admitted this yet but it is believed to be true and that the Quad is indeed formed to counter China's growing influence.
In May 2007 the first meeting of the Quad Group took place, the Australian Prime Minister John Howard, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the Vice President of the US Dick Cheney met in the Philippines in an informally arranged meeting. At that time, the ASEAN Regional Forum meetings were also underway so they had the perfect opportunity to take out some time from that meeting to attend the informal meeting. In August 2007, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had come to India, and he addressed the Indian Parliament and spoke of the Confluence of the Two Seas. The Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean were coming together as a strong duo to form a dynamic coupling of freedom and prosperity. A military perspective is often portrayed from the Quad Group because one month later, in September 2007, the four Quad countries conducted a Navy exercise in the Indian Ocean together. When this happened, China raised a diplomatic protest against the Quad which then led to the failure of this Quad Group.
The Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe resigned from his post because he was struggling with a disease. Australia stepped back in December 2007 when Australia got a new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. In this way, Quad Group 1.0 disintegrated. Although later, in 2008 Kevin Rudd went to meet with George Bush where he showed no interest in the Quad Group. And many experts believed that to gain China's support the US had actually taken a step back from the Quad Group. In 2017, about 10 years later. Quad resurfaced. In 2017, the Indian Prime Minister was Narendra Modi, the US President was Donald Trump and the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe returned to the post of the PM after resigning in 2012. The three leaders met in the Philippines again during the ASEAN Summit. The US released a statement saying that the Quad is formed for the cooperation of shared democratic principles and values. And as we know that any talk of democracy means that you are going against China. So indirectly, this was again a counter to China’s growing influence. But just like the last time, China raised objections this time also saying that the Quad Group was a threat in the Indo-Pacific area and that the four countries using their military in the area wasn't good.
And in March 2021, the Quad meeting takes place but because of the pandemic, this meeting was conducted virtually with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Joe Biden the American President, and Yoshihide Suga the Japanese Prime Minister. In September, the first in-person Quad leader meet takes place where the leaders of the four countries could actually, physically meet. China kept attacking the Quad Group constantly. Criticising it by saying that they are trying to form an Asian NATO but India has always rejected these criticisms as our Foreign Minister said that NATO is a term from the Cold War and it is absolutely obsolete now but ten days before this meeting, another alliance was formed, it was named AUKUS which consisted of Australia, the UK and the USA. As per this alliance, Australia would build nuclear power submarines with help provided by the US and the UK. But it is very interesting to look at the AUKUS group and the Quad group in the same sense as many people are criticising the decision to leave out India and Japan from this new alliance.
Looking at this, it seems like instead of World Peace, the USA works more for World Tension like selling nuclear submarines to Australia and selling weapons to India and Pakistan, it seems like all they want is that they keep getting buyers for their weapons and if India really wants to counter China's influence, then the Quad Group will not be enough. After understanding the situation it is evident that if China’s growing influence is to be countered then the Quad has to take strict actions for it to be a long lasting solution or else, the Quad Group will remain a hollow incompetent group and may fall apart later once again.