Mint Quick Edit | The Quad’s agenda and India’s preference
livemint.com
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. At one time, it seemed as if the Quad grouping of India, Japan, Australia and the US, while focused on the cause of a free and open Indo-Pacific, was chiefly about containing China militarily, given Beijing’s thinly veiled ambition of establishing its influence over the region and possibly unsettling the US-led world order.
Declarations from the Quad’s latest meeting, hosted by the US, though, may suggest an increasingly civilian orientation. Prime Minister Narendra Modi reportedly gave the Quad this nickname: “Quick Unified Assured Delivery." India unveiled a few welfare initiatives for the region, including a vaccine programme against cervical cancer.
The four Quad members pledged to help one another keep their ports resilient in the face of disruption risks. A logistics pact aimed at shared airlift capacity has been billed as a launch pad for a civilian response to natural disasters.
Cooperation on semiconductor supply security is about securing a functional market, though it seems haunted by Chinese designs on Taiwan. Geo-strategic motives are visible in the Quad’s agenda, but New Delhi has kept its options open.
Read more on livemint.com
