Years from now when communist China implodes like the former Soviet Union, analysts will look at the Galwan Valley clash as the tipping point that set in motion the chain of events that triggered the implosion. For, it is after the June 2020 clashes in the Himalayas that India’s political leadership finally stopped believing in the chimera of a friendly China and became a card carrying member of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad, an informal strategic forum comprising the United States, India, Japan and Australia.

The Quad was initiated by Shinzo Abe – Japan’s most visionary Prime Minister. His “Confluence of the Two Seas” speech in the Indian Parliament on August 22, 2007 provided the early momentum, and his “democratic security diamond” proposition in 2012 formalised the group.

 

However, the forum folded up the following year after Prime Minister Kevin Rudd withdrew Australia under Chinese pressure. According to US diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks, the decision was taken without consultation and described it as one of the “significant blunders” of the Rudd government.

Rudd, a practicing Catholic, was openly hostile to India and had declared during his electoral campaign that he would personally tear up any agreement that involved India. The agreement he was referring to was the India-Australia uranium deal but it also revealed his Indophobia.

 

New Delhi itself was wavering under the feckless Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who in 2008 declared that the India-China relationship was a priority for him. Also, with Abe losing the leadership of his party, the Quad became rudderless and sank without a trace.

India blindsided

 

A key factor that led to the Quad’s demise was that all four member countries mistakenly believed in China’s peaceful rise. For instance, India’s leadership – cutting across the political divide – ignored the Han expansionist threat and saw Beijing as a multilateral partner within new emerging blocs. With China and India locked-in as members of the much hyped BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), the thinking in New Delhi was that Beijing was no longer a military threat but rather a new economic partner.

The frequent and ultimate deadly clashes in the Himalayas proved the fallacy of such naïve strategies. No Indian leader comes out of this episode untainted. While Manmohan Singh’s overtures could be described as the diplomatic blunders of a party puppet, even a hardnosed nationalist such as Prime Minister Narendra Modi misjudged the intentions of the Han supremo Xi Jinping who proved to just as untrustworthy as previous Chinese leaders.

India’s reticence to counter the dragon aggressively is inexplicable, considering the fact that between 2016 and 2018 there were over 1,000 incidents of transgressions by Chinese troops (as per Parliament records).

New avatar

The Galwan clash which led to the unfortunate deaths of 20 Indian soldiers – and at least 35 Chinese troops – was the wake up slap India needed to get out of its delusion that the Chinese could be trusted. Indians now believe diplomacy is no longer cutting ice, and want a hard stance against Beijing. While the Quad had come out of cold storage in 2017 in response to an increasingly aggressive China, it is only after the cold blooded murder of its soldiers that India shed its decades’ long reticence about making any bold moves that could potentially annoy China.

As well as Galwan, other major international developments such as Covid-19 and frictions between the dragon and all four Quad countries have created the conditions for the grouping’s reemergence. The following developments indicate the Quad is getting some teeth.

In June, Australia signed an agreement with India that will include collaboration on several issues. The new Mutual Logistics Support Arrangement connects the two countries in a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership – a status that India already had in its relations with the other members of the Quad as well as Indonesia and Vietnam.

Around the same time, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced Australia would acquire long range anti-ship missiles (with the PLA Navy being the obvious target), suspend the extradition treaty with Hong Kong and change immigration rules for Hong Kong.

In early July, Japan announced it would now begin sharing intelligence with India and Australia on an equal footing with the United States.

Shortly after the Galwan clashes, the US moved two aircraft carrier groups, the USS Ronald Reagan and the USS Nimitz into the South China Sea. This brought the total deployment of American super carriers in the Indo-Pacific region to three. “Our military might stand strong and will continue to stand strong, whether it’s in relationship to a conflict between India and China or anywhere else,” said White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.

Redefining the Quad

The flurry of military activity that has happened in the Indo-Pacific has commentators believing there’s a military alliance in the works. In fact, there are a lot of misperceptions about the quadrilateral grouping.

Some view it as unworkable. James Curran, professor of history at the University of Sydney, writes in the Australian Financial Review that the chances of the Quad developing into an Asian NATO are fantasy. “At present, it stands as little more than a diplomatic carcass hastily exhumed from the graveyard of Asian regional architecture. Some think it answers Trump’s call for allies to do more, and that it keeps a waning US engaged in the region. Yet questions remain not only about the Quad’s credibility as a counterweight to China but how it overcomes a complex array of competing national interests among the four: over border disputes, trade and maritime tensions. For its part, the US, and this president in particular, can turn on a dime, potentially leaving Australia in the lurch. It has happened before.”

Then there is the opposite extreme. Chinese nationalists are certain the forum has the potential to develop into a military bloc that could transform the security scenario in the Indo-Pacific.

But according to Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, people are assigning to the group roles and responsibilities and expectations which were never intended to be those of the Quad. “This obsession that the Quad must have political-level visibility or that it must somehow be weaponised in some way, I think this is just misunderstanding what it was about,” he said in a 2019 interview at the Asia Society, New York.

Jaishankar added: “It was meant as a diplomatic consultation and coordination forum of countries that have convergences, which do not agree on every issue but have substantial common ground. And to my mind you should leave it alone. It works. It has a good agenda, and has continued to function well. The quality of relations among the Quad, bilaterally, trilaterally, plurilaterally, it’s all good. And I think the Quad kind of pulls all the threads together.”

No need for a Pacific NATO

NATO was formed after World War II when the West faced an existential threat from the communist bloc. Similar, albeit smaller military pacts like Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) and Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) were formed to prevent the Soviet Union from making inroads into Asia, North Africa and the West Asia. At the same time, the US entered into bilateral military pacts with Japan, Australia and South Korea, which have continued long after the Cold War. If India feels the need for a defence treaty, then it can enter into a bilateral one with the US.

The Quad is a different beast. Like its critics argue, each member country has a different beef with China. Australia’s military and intelligence network has often been penetrated by the communists. Beijing has been trying to gain equity control of vital Australian mines and strategic companies. The US is a major target of Chinese spying networks which seek to ferret out American high technology for Chinese dual use. With Japan, China has had long-standing territorial disputes. And the India-China Himalayan conflict is at least 60 years old.

In the backdrop of each Quad member having security issues not necessarily shared by the others, a mutual military alliance would be unworkable. For instance, under what circumstances should India come to the aid of Japan? If there is a second Galwan or the Chinese hordes enter the Himalayan foothills in Himachal Pradesh, can Japan open an eastern front? The current relationship between India and Japan is not close enough for either country to risk casualties for the other.

Also, while individually Japan and India are capable of defending themselves against China, they lack the military might required to dispatch a fleet halfway around the world without weakening their own defence. At the moment, only the US has this capability.

On the other hand, there is a robust and decades-old military partnership between other members. For instance, if a PLA warship enters Japanese waters or a Chinese jet sneaks into Japan’s airspace, the entire US-Japan defence system – comprising radars, military satellites, interceptors, warships, aircraft carries and missiles – gets activated to counter the intruder. Similarly, the American military base in Darwin is strategically posed to defend Australia from a Chinese invasion. With these robust bilateral military alliances in place, there is no need for the Quad to be weaponised.

Brains trust

What the Quad should be is a brains trust comprising military and intelligence heads (from the four member countries) who can provide a calibrated response to the Chinese threat. It needs to be a China monitoring group which conducts an all-angles attack on Chinese hegemony. This would primarily comprise a silent economic war like the one that brought down the mighty Soviet Union. After decades of playing catch-up, the communists realised that they could no longer effectively compete against the combined economies and militaries of NATO plus Japan and other second tier allies including South Korea, the ASEAN and Australia.

At the moment, with the premature retirement of Prime Minister Abe, the Quad is in danger of becoming rudderless, especially if a liberal Japanese politician replaces him. India should therefore keep the momentum going by taking a leadership role. Jeff M. Smith writes in War On The Rocks: “The Quad’s fate has always rested in India’s hands. Australia, Japan, and the United States are already bound by a deep network of formal treaty alliances, overlapping strategic dialogues and intelligence sharing arrangements. Drawing India — with the world’s second-largest population, third-largest defence budget, fifth-largest economy, and an escalating strategic competition with China — into greater alignment with the other three democracies has been a priority of theirs for over a decade.”

The Quad has been described as a “corridor of communication” and that is precisely what India needs to work on. Keep the continental lines of communication open so that all member states are on the same page and never lose sight of their ultimate goal – the final downfall of the communist regime.

Here’s a checklist for New Delhi

Become militarily involved: It doesn’t take a geopolitical pundit to identify India as the only country in the Quad that still clings to the ghost of nonalignment. New Delhi’s aversion for military alliances is quite hypocritical as it had entered into a secret military pact with the Soviet Union months before the 1971 war.

An India-US formal defence treaty on the US-Japan and US-Australia model will create a third headache – and a major security nightmare – for the PLA. Like the Soviet Union, China will have to squander resources to prepare for war on multiple fronts.

Joint and frequent military exercises in the South China Sea (the dragon’s backyard), tailing of Chinese naval fleet in the Indian Ocean and monitoring them as they pass through the vulnerable Malacca Straits are already happening. The India-led annual Malabar naval exercise involving the navies of the Quad nations plus other friendly powers has unnerved the Chinese. Not only does it make them feel isolated, but the Chinese have looked on in envy at India’s growing prestige internationally. These efforts should be complemented with India-US war games on the Tibet border.

Modi’s speech on Independence Day hinted that India would develop the islands in the Andaman & Nicobar Islands. The islands are often referred to as India’s “unsinkable aircraft carrier” in the East Indian Ocean Region. Close to 80 per cent of China’s seaborne trade passes through this region and for Beijing the possibility of this being throttled raises a nightmarish scenario. According to Sujan Chinoy, Director General at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MPIDSA), India should open up the islands “to the friendly navies of the US, Japan, Australia and France among others”.

Sure, these moves will likely lead to a backlash, and the PLA Navy could start sailing into Gwadar and Hambantota. But that’s exactly the response that India should elicit – get the dragon to make a strategic overreach and in the process become unhinged. This is the same mistake the Soviets did, matching the US dollar for dollar in defence spending while having only half the GDP of the US. It hollowed out their economy and lowered Soviet living standards, leading to a popular uprising.

Economic boycott: The Heritage Foundation observes, “The Quad represents not just a quarter of the world’s population (1.8 billion people) but a little over a quarter of the world’s economic activity measured by GDP. A quarter of all global foreign direct investment flows (averaging over US$380 billion a year) come from Quad countries. This is the economic heft that India can leverage against its prime adversary.

After Galwan, the indication is that the gloves are off. Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar made it clear the “unprecedented development will have a serious impact on the bilateral relationship”. The ban on Chinese apps and companies such as Huawei (from bidding for Indian contracts) shows this is not mere tough talk. The political leadership in New Delhi must ensure the momentum of boycotting Chinese products and services must not end but grow.

There is simply no way that the US$13 trillion Chinese economy can compete with the Quad which is three times larger at $39 trillion. Also, let’s not forget that in typically Orwellian manner the Chinese have been exaggerating their GDP figures. A team of four economists from Hong Kong’s Chinese University revealed in “A Forensic Examination of China’s National Account” that a more realistic figure is $11.21 trillion.

Join the multilateral pincer: India should join sustainable non-Chinese alliance frameworks such as the Blue Dot Network (BDN), a multilateral Indo-Pacific initiative comprising the United States, Japan and Australia. Aimed at improving standards of infrastructure investment and hailed as a counter initiative to China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the BDN could mark the beginning of a new economic alliance for India in the Indo-Pacific.

The idea is for India to become more self-reliant and less dependent on China-led global supply chain mechanisms. According to Jagannath Panda of MPIDSA, “Joining the BDN is a step in the right direction toward creating alternative supply chain and value mechanisms, boosting infrastructure investments, and protecting national interests in the wake of a resurgent and hyper-aggressive China.”

Quad Plus: While the US, Japan, India and Australia are the core of the forum, there are several countries that are keen to jump on board as associate members. These include Taiwan, Vietnam and New Zealand which are keen to reduce their economic ties to China. Taiwan, for instance, wants Japan and India to help it build submarines. It wants to relocate Taiwanese factories from China to India and other low wage economies. By helping these countries achieve their economic independence goals, the Quad can drastically reduce China’s clout and GDP. Since exports are the dragon’s lifeline, making cuts in this jugular will shrink its economy. The effects of lowered trade and GDP can be seen in the massive layoffs happening across China after the Covid-19 backlash. Mass unemployment will prod the Chinese people to rise up against the brutal dictatorship.

Conclusion

Making a clean break from its past pattern of straddling the middle, India should make it clear to the world and to the communists in Beijing that China’s territorial ambitions will prove costly. The Soviet Union wasn’t defeated by the US, Western Europe, Canada and Japan being friendly to the Russian bear but due to the sustained economic boycott and unrelenting military pressure that were in place for 45 years. It is incredible that the descendants of Chanakya are not able to grasp something as simple as this.

India’s wholehearted participation in creating a Great Wall against China will come with fringe benefits – such as membership of prestigious global clubs. President Donald Trump declared in May his plans to convene a larger G7 summit including India to “discuss China’s future”. But these are the low hanging fruits. The bigger prize is the destruction of the barbaric communist regime which has become a huge menace for the entire world. When that happens it would weaken Pakistan as it will lose its primary godfather. Only when both China and Pakistan are weakened and balkanised India will find true peace.

On the other hand, hoping to play a balancing game between the West and China would be counterproductive as the dragon and the Islamic madhouse next door are actively working to balkanise India. Fence sitters rarely get anywhere.

–The writer is a globally cited defence analyst. His work has been published by leading think tanks, and quoted extensively in books on diplomacy, counter terrorism, warfare and economic development. The views expressed are personal and do not necessarily reflect the views of Raksha Anirveda