One of the key engagements of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his September 21-23 visit to the United States was the Quad Leaders’ meeting. Hosted by U.S. President Joe Biden in Wilmington, Delaware, the summit took place as the Quad, which brings together the U.S., India, Japan, and Australia, completes two decades of existence.
The four countries came together first in the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami to offer humanitarian assistance to affected countries. Since 2021, Quad leaders have met six times, including twice virtually. The foreign ministers of the four countries have met eight times since 2019.
The Wilmington Declaration is noteworthy for the many new initiatives that the grouping – seen as ranged against China – has pledged to undertake as part of its agenda. Indeed, Biden was caught by a hot mic as saying: “China continues to behave aggressively, testing us all across the region. It is true in the South China Sea, the East China Sea, South Asia, and the Taiwan Straits.”
From an India perspective, what stands out is the number of the new Quad initiatives that the country is directly involved in, indicating New Delhi’s willingness to take on more responsibilities as it looks to burnish its credentials as a leading power in the Indo-Pacific. Also interesting is the fact that these initiatives directly take on several Chinese ventures and plans in the region.
Previously, India was declared the “weak link” in the grouping, as it was seen to be opposed to the idea of Quad being a military alliance to counter China. New Delhi’s argument that it stood for an alternative narrative to China’s in the Indo-Pacific was perceived as illustrative of this weakness. As was India’s prioritizing of non-traditional security issues including maritime domain awareness, humanitarian and disaster relief, and vaccine diplomacy within the Quad.
In the Wilmington Declaration, India (as opposed to Indian) finds mention at least a dozen times — far more than in previous Quad Leaders’ declarations.
In the September 2021 Washington Quad Declaration, for instance, India is mentioned four times – all in the context of vaccine supply initiatives against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cut to 2024, India is named as the host for the critical Quad Regional Ports and Transportation Conference to take place next year in Mumbai. This is part of the new Quad Ports of the Future Partnership, “which will harness the Quad’s expertise to support sustainable and resilient port infrastructure development across the Indo-Pacific, in collaboration with regional partners,” the Wilmington Declaration said. Through this, “Quad partners intend to coordinate, exchange information, share best practices with partners in the region, and leverage resources to mobilize government and private sector investments in quality port infrastructure across the Indo-Pacific region,” it said.
Significantly, this comes against the backdrop of China’s Belt and Road Initiative that is involved in infrastructure development, including the construction of ports, across a swathe of countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
In 2025, India will host a new regional Maritime Initiative for Training in the Indo-Pacific. This will “enable our partners in the region to maximize tools… to monitor and secure their waters, enforce their laws, and deter unlawful behavior,” the Wilmington Declaration said. This initiative can be seen as a measure to counter China’s illegal and unregulated fishing practices as well as unreported surveys of the seabed by Chinese scientific research vessels. Data collected by such vessels is seen as critical to civilian scientific research; it can also be used by the military to detect the passage of submarines, for instance.
Besides the maritime training move, 2025 will also see the “first-ever Quad-at-Sea Ship Observer Mission” to improve interoperability among Quad countries and advance maritime safety.
The India-organized workshop on strengthening power sector resilience was appreciated, as was India’s commissioning of a feasibility study to examine expansion of undersea cable maintenance and repair capabilities in the Indo-Pacific. The second complemented efforts made by the Quad through its Partnership for Cable Connectivity and Resilience, the Declaration said. Cable connectivity is a seriously contested domain between the United States and China given their high-stakes technology war. The U.S. fears Chinese firms building subsea cables carrying global data that will pass on sensitive information to the Chinese government.
The role of Indian institutions is mentioned in the context of training people in Open RAN (Radio Access Network) systems. Open RAN allows interoperability between cellular network equipment provided by different vendors. The U.S. is pushing against China’s edge in telecommunications equipment business and 5G standardization. “The U.S. also plans to invest over $7 million to support the global expansion of Asia Open RAN Academy, including through establishing a first-of-its-kind Open RAN workforce training initiative at scale in South Asia, in partnership with Indian institutions,” the Wilmington Declaration said.
Then there is the Quad Cancer Moonshot initiative that is described as a “groundbreaking partnership to save lives in the Indo-Pacific region.” This builds on Quad cooperation in vaccine deliveries during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is seen as an idea close to Biden’s heart given that he lost his son Beau to cancer in 2015. India’s role in this venture includes the provision of detection kits and cervical cancer vaccines worth $7.5 million to the Indo-Pacific region. India is already known as the “Pharmacy of the World” for its production of vaccines and medicines, and this effort only adds to that reputation.
Besides, its commitment to invest $2 million in new solar projects in Fiji, Comoros, Madagascar, and Seychelles; India’s establishment of a space-based web portal for Mauritius to monitor extreme weather events; and its award of 50 Quad scholarships, worth $500,000, to students from the Indo-Pacific to pursue a four-year undergraduate engineering program at a Government of India-funded technical institution have all come in for praise in the Wilmington Declaration.
Given the above, it was perhaps more than symbolic that Biden put his arm on Modi’s shoulder when he said “Way beyond November” when asked if the Quad would survive after the U.S. presidential polls that month.
India is the host of the Quad Leaders’ Summit in 2025. Hence, the gesture may have been Biden’s way of passing on the baton to Modi. But more importantly, with Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio leaving office and Australian Prime Minister Antony Albanese facing polls next year, Modi of India would be the one constant presence at summits since 2021, when the Quad began meeting at the leaders’ level. In fact, Modi has been in office since 2017, when the Quad first regrouped.