The old Quad is dying, time for a new Quad

The Quad, a 2007 partnership broadly intended to contain China’s hegemonistic ambitions in the Indo-Pacific, was a brainchild of then-Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo. It makes sense: China is rampaging in its neighbourhood and gives every sign of wanting to either grab territory that belongs to others or bully them into acquiescence and tributary status.

The belligerence that created the current Chinese empire, that is, the forced absorption of Tibet, Xinjiang and Manchuria into the core Han coastal heartland, is part of a harking back to ancient Chinese empires. Xi Jinping, perhaps even more than Mao, embodies a hankering to be the almighty king-emperor of the erstwhile Middle Kingdom.

More from Opinion

The US unwittingly allowed China to rapidly de-industrialise it post joining the WTO and to come up with a business plan that calls for massive overproduction and the resultant price collapse, which is a template they use to rape and pillage industry after industry. A recent casualty is Germany’s prized automobile industry: bellwether Volkswagen has been forced to lay off 100,000 workers, brutalised by a tsunami of Chinese electric vehicles.

However, as Utpal Kumar points out in an insightful essay, all is not well in Xi’s kingdom, e.g., the debt mountain, paranoia as seen in regular purges of military brass, and propaganda that conceals all bad news. (Did you hear of a small plane hitting a tower in central Beijing? Yes, a mini-9/11. But the information was blanked out.) Continuing rural poverty is also censored, although Indians on x.com posted images of extreme filth and poverty, far from the glossy high-rise, bullet-train image that Chinese propaganda projects.

Paradoxically, that is precisely what makes China yet more dangerous: it will probably lash out in external adventurism to preserve legitimacy internally.

Thus, the need for sober containment of China’s destructive power. The US, which has been the natural candidate for reining in this rogue power, has now demonstrated that it is retrenching. It has, for instance, demonstrated that it is no longer willing to indefinitely support its NATO allies. The “nuclear umbrella” that it has offered Japan may also be getting a little threadbare.

It is likely that President Trump invaded Iran with the good idea of denying China oil, both Iranian and Venezuelan, as retaliation for China’s squeeze on rare earths. Alas, that has turned into a fiasco, creating collateral damage for innocent bystanders such as India. In game-theoretic terms, if an isolationist “Fortress America” mood has descended on the US, then a “G2 condominium” with China may be the simplest option, as I said several years ago.

If the US has indeed acquiesced to China being the hegemon in its sphere of influence, namely the Indo-Pacific, then there is good reason for the jilted Quad members (Japan, Australia and India) to enter into bilateral agreements amongst each other to look after their own national interest, including but not limited to Sinophobia. And in fact they have done so.

It is true that the Quad Foreign Ministers’ meeting in May 2026 in Delhi produced some agreements on critical minerals (clearly a US priority) and surveillance collaboration, but I get the feeling that this is mostly a matter of keeping up appearances. Therefore, it is worth pivoting to Japanese PM Takaichi’s recent visit to India and PM Modi’s trips to Indonesia and Australia.

Japan and India are obvious partners because their economies are complementary: one is resource- and technology-rich and labour-poor, and the other is the opposite. There is also an old civilisational link between the two, going back to Bodhidharma from Kanchipuram, who embarked from Muziris circa 500CE and established the Zen school of Buddhism in Japan.

There are also clear civilisational links between India and Indonesia. Hindu Bali is obvious, but Java, until the Hindu-Buddhist Majapahit Empire was defeated circa 1500 CE by Muslim kingdoms (encouraged by the Chinese empire of the time), was also heavily Indianised. As someone who has travelled in both Japan and Indonesia, I was delighted to see Devanagari inscriptions on the Great Bell at Hiroshima and the Ramayana Ballet at the Prambanan temple.

Japan and India signed a series of agreements, including an investment target of Yen 10 trillion (about $66 billion) in areas such as critical minerals, semiconductors and pharmaceuticals. They agreed upon a new focus on artificial intelligence and quantum technologies and on energy self-reliance, including hydrogen and biogas.

They also reaffirmed support for a Free and Open Indo-Pacific (let us note that on June 16th the US renamed its Indo-Pacific Command to just “Pacific Command”, a telling admission of retreat). The US may well be abandoning the Indian Ocean just when it is becoming the focus of trade.)

The Indonesia-India agreements were significant: they included, for instance, Brahmos and Astra missile systems (which, in conjunction with other ASEAN purchases of Brahmos missiles, creates a potentially integrated sea-denial mechanism against persistent Chinese maritime aggression).

Pointedly, there will be joint development on Indonesia’s deep-water Sabang Port in Aceh, which is on the Malacca Straits just 90 nautical miles away from India’s upcoming Great Nicobar dual-use port.

The two ports can form a defensive shield that could deny transit in Malacca to hostile ships and submarines (read: Chinese). Since two-thirds of China’s trade and energy imports pass through Malacca, this is a potent threat, especially as we have just seen what the siege of Hormuz did to global trade. Let us also remember that, exactly 1,001 years ago, Emperor Rajendra Chola sent a large fleet to open up Malacca when the SriVijaya Empire closed it.

There were also agreements on critical minerals (e.g., nickel for EV batteries, as Indonesia has the world’s largest reserves, cobalt, etc.), steel, maritime security, and technology cooperation.

Let us also remember the trilateral Japan-Indonesia-India naval exercises in the Andaman Sea in February 2026.

PM Modi’s visit to Australia is the most problematic. Earlier, under Kevin Rudd, a Sinophilic PM, Australia exited the Quad in 2008, effectively making it moribund. Besides, Australia for decades refused sniffily to sell India uranium, despite India being a committed non-proliferator. This may also have had something to do with the UK’s (Whitehall’s) deleterious influence on Australia.

But days ago, Australia committed to supplying uranium to India in support of the latter’s quest for energy security. Oz has apparently learnt that cosying up to China is not good for its own economic health.

Thus, the quadrilateral of the US, Japan, Australia and India may well morph into a quadrilateral of Japan, Indonesia, Australia and India, all united in their concerns about China. The US has a choice: either continue to be the anchor of the Quad (Pentagon) or be left behind if it insists on retreating into its shell. The former option would be better for all concerned.

(The writer has been a conservative columnist for over 25 years. His academic interest is innovation. Views expressed are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.)