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Updated March 6th, 2021 at 18:33 IST

QUAD Summit: Here's how four democracies came together for Quadrilateral Security Dialogue

If media reports are to be believed, a virtual summit might take place as early as March before the leaders finally meet in person sometime in summer this year.

Reported by: Vishal Tiwari
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The gathering of Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD) leaders might take place "very soon" as hinted by the Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison recently. The meeting will be the first-ever gathering of QUAD leaders since the multilateral grouping fell apart in 2008. If media reports are to be believed, a virtual summit might take place as early as March before the leaders finally meet in person sometime in summer this year. 

What is QUAD and how it came into being?

QUAD or Quadrilateral Security Dialogue officially came into being in 2007, when the then Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met with leaders of the United States, Japan, and Australia on the sidelines of the ASEAN Regional Forum summit. The four leaders had decided to meet for an exploratory meeting, which became the first and the only meeting to take place between leaders of QUAD 1.0. 

Read: Quad Nations Hold Virtual Meeting To Review Progress Of Initiatives Agreed In October

However, the "exploratory meeting" on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit is not something that came up abruptly because the build-up for that had been going on for months before it finally happened. The idea of QUAD was first suggested by former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who during his 2006 election campaign, envisioned a grouping between the four democracies based on mutual interests to tackle challenges in the Indo-Pacific. 

After Abe won the election, his foreign minister reiterated his vision of a multilateral partnership between the "like-minded" countries in the Indo-Pacific. In December the same year, the then Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Japan to meet with his newly-elected counterpart, from where both leaders called for an alliance between India, Japan and other democracies in the Indo-Pacific. 

Read: Quad Leaders Summit With PM Modi, Suga, Biden And Morrison To Take Place Soon

By 2007, the whispers of QUAD had reached Washington as opinions filled with the idea of a new multilateral alliance in the Indo-Pacific breezed with the winds through the Capitol Hill and the White House. In February 2007, the then US Vice President Dick Cheney brought up the possibility of a quadrilateral grouping between the US, Australia, Japan, and India during his visit to Canberra to meet with then Australian PM John Howard. 

In March, Howard visited Japan, where he backed the idea of QUAD based on "shared democratic values". The next two months saw visits and counter-visits by officials of four countries to discuss the very first exploratory meeting scheduled to take place in May that year. The four leaders met at the sidelines of the ASEAN summit in the Philippines and that was it, the only meeting between leaders of QUAD 1.0. 

How QUAD 1.0 fell apart? 

Just the idea of a possible alliance between the United States, Japan, Australia and, India garnered strong opposition from China, which was growing exponentially at the time and saw it as a threat to its influence in the region. China was the biggest trading partner of Australia and used it as leverage to convince Canberra that the "would-be grouping" is not what it wants. The then Australian Defence Minister Brendan Nelson, during his visit to China and India in July 2007, insisted that Australia wants the QUAD engagement to be on economic and peacekeeping issues, indicating Canberra's hesitation in going with something that China deems a threat.  

Read: QUAD Opposes Chinese Attempts To Alter Status Quo In Indo-Pacific; EAM Attends Meet

Australia elected a new Prime Minister later in 2007, who immediately reflected that QUAD is not something that Australia is keen about. In December, a senior US official said that Washington's "priority is to focus on the trilateral dialogue among the three allies", referring to the alliance between the US, Japan, and Australia, which had been in place since 2002. In 2008, the Indian Prime Minister visited China, where he said the concept of QUAD was already on "life-support" and it "never got going". 

The resurgence of QUAD 2.0

The QUAD was revived in 2017 after the United States, India, Australia, and Japan decided to rejoin the negotiations during the ASEAN Summit. This time the objective was clear than ever before as all four members wanted the grouping to be a counterbalance to China's increasing military assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific. The first ministerial-level meeting was held in September 2019, where they discussed the framework for the alliance. In October 2020, the foreign ministers of four countries met in Tokyo to discuss challenges in the Indo-Pacific and collective response to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Read: Antony Blinken Speaks To Quad Counterparts, Looks 'forward To Deepening Cooperation'
 

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Published March 6th, 2021 at 18:33 IST

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