Hi there, I’m Aman Thakker. Welcome to Indialogue, a newsletter analyzing the biggest policy developments in India. The aim of this newsletter is to provide you with quality analysis every week on what’s going on in India. Here’s what you can expect in this week’s newsletter:
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India and the Quad
Last week marked a busy week for India’s Prime Minister Modi, who was in the United States for much of the week last week. In Washington, Prime Minister Modi held bilateral meetings with President Biden and Vice President Harris of the United States, Prime Minister Morrison of Australia, and Prime Minister Suga of Japan. He also met with the CEOs of five companies - Blackstone, General Atomics, Qualcomm, Adobe, and First Solar. He concluded his trip in New York City, where he addressed the high-level segment of the 76th United Nations General Assembly.
However, the highest-profile event of the week was Prime Minister Modi’s participation in the first in-person leader-level summit of the Quad. We’ve discussed the Quad in detail in this newsletter during past ministerial-level meetings of the Quad as well as when the leaders met for the first time virtually earlier this year. However, for a brief (and hopefully helpful introduction), here is a breakdown of what the Quad is and how it has evolved from a previous edition of this newsletter:
In 2004, Australia, India, Japan, and the United States came together to manage the humanitarian assistance and disaster relief efforts in the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. This grouping, focused on this narrow mission in 2004 and ceased quadrilateral engagement after the tsunami response, continued to persist as an idea among strategists. By 2006, then-Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh, on a state visit to Japan with his newly-elected counterpart, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, noted, in a joint statement, the “usefulness of having dialogue among India, Japan and other like-minded countries in the Asia-Pacific region on themes of mutual interest.” With the United States and Australia making up these “other like-minded countries in the Asia-Pacific,” the Quad was born.
By 2007, the Quad had two components. The first was diplomatic - an informal meeting of officials from all four countries on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit in Manila. The second was military - a joint exercise involving all four countries, as well as Singapore, under the aegis of the then-bilateral U.S.-India MALABAR Exercise (Japan, Australia, and Singapore were invited as “non-permanent partners” in 2007; MALABAR was officially upgraded to a trilateral exercise in 2015, when Japan became a “permanent partner.”)
However, by 2008, the Quad was comatose. Partly, domestic political compulsions forced the countries to take a step back from the Quad. Prime Minister Abe - seen as the driving force behind the grouping - resigned his position in September 2007. Prime Minister Singh faced backlash from the left flank of his domestic political alliance over growing U.S.-India ties as well as the Quad. However, the Quad was ultimately put down after Australian officials, sensitive to China’s vocal concerns over the Quad, declared that they “would not be proposing to have a dialogue of that nature” again.
In the years since, the idea of resurrecting the Quad has continued to linger, gaining speed in recent years. Since 2008, India has deepened its ties with all three countries through a variety of bilateral and trilateral mechanisms. The rise of China, and its increasingly assertive behavior that has threatened key interests of all four countries, has also given additional impetus to restart the group. On Nov. 12, 2017, nearly a full decade after the first informal meeting of the Quad, the four countries announced that officials from all four countries had met to discuss “issues of common interest in the Indo-Pacific region.”
Since its ressurection, the Quad has steadily growing in its engagements. Since 2017, the Quad has not only risen steadily from the working level to the ministerial and leader's level, but also expanded its cooperation in scope and substance. On this second point, the Quad, during the last leader level meeting held virtually earlier this year, announced the creation of three working groups - on COVID-19 vaccines, on climate change, and on critical technologies - to underscore its evolution and its utlitity to the Indo-Pacific region.
Last week’s summit further expanded its substantive cooperation, announcing new initiatives among the existing workings groups, as well as the creation of new workings groups. I’ve included a quick summary of what was announced below (and you can look at the full slate of announcements here):
Quad Vaccines Experts Group
Target of 1 billion doses distributed by end of 2022
Investments of $100 million for COVID-19 vaccines and treatment drugs
Quad countries will jointly build and conduct a pandemic preparedness tabletop exercise in 2022
Climate Change Working Group
Formation of a Green Shipping Network
Establishment of the Clean Hydrogen Partnership
Creation of a Climate & Information Services Task Force within the Working Group to share information about climate change and disaster-resilient infrastructure
Critical Technologies Working Group
Forthcoming publication of a Quad Statement of Principles
Establishment of Technical Standards Contact Groups in the fields of Advanced Communication and in Artificial Intelligence
Launch of a Semiconductor Supply Chain Initiative
Launched of a Track 1.5 industry dialogue on Open RAN deployment and adoption of 5G technologies
Joint monitoring of advanced biotechnologies, including synthetic biology, genome sequencing, and biomanufacturing
Creation of a Quad Senior Cybersecurity Group
Creation of a Quad Infrastructure Coordination Group
Launch of a Quad STEM Fellowship to bring 100 students per year—25 from each Quad country—to pursue masters and doctoral degrees at leading STEM graduate universities in the United States
Begin collaboration on space, particularly by exchanging satellite data on climate change risks, as well as begin consultations on norms, guidelines, principles, and rules for ensuring the long-term sustainability of the outer space environment.
This growing cooperation between the Quad countries presents three significant implications.
First, the notion that the Quad is a do-nothing talk shop, or that the emergence of new coalitions in the Indo-Pacific (particularly the new AUKUS security agreement between the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom) are a signal of the Quad lack of utility are not based in evidence. The Quad has become, almost impressively quickly, a coalition that is collaborating across security areas, non-security areas, as well as areas that may have overlap across both domains (such as critical technologies). The idea that AUKUS (or any other Indo-Pacific based coalition) is taking away from the Quad should be put to rest by not only the rhetoric from the leaders of the four Quad countries, but also the substance of what the Quad is working on.
The second is that while the Quad’s growth and evolution has certainly been driven by growing and shared concerns among the four countries on China’s rising assertivness and the actions it has taken to undermine the core interests of all four members of the Quad, the Quad is not an organization that is explicitly about competition with China. The intent, rather, has been to address the key challenges facing the Indo-Pacific region, and provide value to the countris in the region. This intent has only been reinforced by the recent announements by the Quad, and the new working groups and initiatives it has created. However, the implict goal is to showcase a vision shared by these four countries about a rules-based order, and how it may serve the interests of the region compared to the vision propagated by China.
This does not, however, mean that the Quad is doing everything perfectly. It still has some things to figure, particularly in achieving depth in addition to breadth on the areas it is working on. For example, the Quad’s vaccine initiative, announced with much fanfare, has been unfortunately hobbled, unfortunately, by the emergence and rapid spread of the Delta variant in India, which led India to restrict exports of the COVID-19 vaccine. As a result, the Quad countries have, to date, delivered around 79 million doses of the vaccine, which, while certainly not insignificant, is well short of the ambition and collective capacity of the Quad. While this is only one example, it goes to show that while the Quad is (and should be) expanding it cooperation into different areas, it is also time for the Quad to put some achievements on the board.
Primary Sources
Prime Minister Modi’s meeting with President of the United States of America
Meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Prime Minister SUGA Yoshihide of Japan
Meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Vice President Kamala Harris of the USA
Meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia
English translation of the Prime Minister’s opening remarks at QUAD
Expert Voices
Dr. Tanvi Madan, senior fellow in the Foreign Policy program, and director of The India Project at the Brookings Institution: More than hype: Summit shows that the Quad is already coming of age - The Times of India
Dr. C. Raja Mohan, director of the National University of Singapore’s Institute of South Asian Studies: AUKUS, the Quad, and India’s Strategic Pivot - Foreign Policy
Amb. Rajiv Bhatia, Distinguished Fellow, Gateway House., and India’s former ambassador to Myanmar, Mexico, Kenya and South Africa: The importance of Quad meeting amidst current geopolitical flux - Indian Express
Dr. Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan, Director of the Centre for Security, Strategy and Technology (CSST) at the Observer Research Foundation: Does AUKUS Augment or Diminish the Quad? - The Diplomat
Dr. Tanvi Madan, senior fellow in the Foreign Policy program, and director of The India Project at the Brookings Institution: India, the Quad and AUKUS - Lawfare
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News Roundup
Prime Minister Modi spoke on the telephone with the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, on September 21. The two leaders discussed recent developments in Afghanistan, as well as increasing bilateral collaboration in the Indo-Pacific region.
Prime Minister Modi met with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Saudi Arabia, Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, on September 20. The Prime Minister discussed the situation in Afghanistan, as well as fostering greater investment from Saudi Arabia in key sectors like energy, IT, and defense manufacturing with the Minister.
The Indian government notified a new Production Incentive Scheme for automobiles and auto components. The scheme will last for a period of five year beginning FY 2022-23 and is expected to lead to investments of over Rs. 42,500 crore ($5.76 billion) in investments, and generate 750,000 new jobs. Complete information about the scheme, including the eligibilty of companies to participate in the scheme, is available here.
The Ministry of Defense placed a supply order for 118 Main Battle Tanks Arjun Mk-1A from the Heavy Vehicles Factory in Avadi, Chennai, which will be used for the Indian Army. The order is worth a total of Rs. 7,523 crore ($1.02 billion).
The governments of India and the United Arab Emirates have announced they have formally launched negotiations on the India-United Arab Emirates Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA). The announcement came during the visit of the UAE Minister of State for Foreign Trade, Dr. Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi. Both countries have agreed to conclude negotiations by December 2021 and sign a formal agreement by March 2022, and expect that the CEPA will increase bilateral trade in goods between both countries to $100 billion over the next five years.
The Indian government announced that it will appointed Air Marshal V. R. Chaudhuri, the current Vice Chief of Air Staff, as the next Chief of Air Staff, once the incument Chief of Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal RKS Bhaduria, retires on September 30, 2021.
The Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal announced the creation of a “National Single Window System (NSWS)” for investors and businesses on September 22, 2021. The current NSWS hosts approvals across 18 departments of the central government, as well approvals for 9 States. The government expects that it will add approvals for another 14 central government departments and 5 states by December 2021.
Members of the Indian armed forces participated in the 6th Edition of the Exercise PEACEFUL MISSIon along with the other member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. This year’s exercise, hosted by Russia, lasted for 12 days and culminated on September 24, 2021.
The governments of India and Australia hosted the first ever Joint Working Group meeting on Coal and Mines on September 21, 2021. The meeting was held in advance of the upcoming India-Australia Energy Dialogue, currently scheduled to be held on October 13, 2021.
Mr. R.N. Ravi, the Indian government’s interlocuter for ongoing peace talks with the Naga political groups, resigned his position as interlocutor on September 22, 2021. His announcement comes shortly after Mr. Ravi, who also served as the Governor of the state of Nagaland, was reassigned as the Governor for the state of Tamil Nadu.
Three to Read
From cogent analysis to potentially big news that you should keep an eye on, here are a few commentaries and other pieces of writing that I found particularly enlightening:
Manisha Girotra, India Chief Executive Officer at Moelis & Company: Health, infra and fiscal stimulus will act as our economic panacea - Livemint
Mujib Mashal, New York Times correspondent for South Asia, and Hari Kumar, reporter in the New Delhi bureau of The New York Times: For India’s Military, a Juggling Act on Two Hostile Fronts - The New York Times
Roshan Kishore and Abhishek Jha of Hindustan Times - Why do farm concerns not get as much political attention as they should? - Hindustan Times
Thanks for reading this latest edition of Indialogue. Please let me know if you have any thoughts or feedback by emailing me at aman@amanthakker.com.