Message from Tokyo

The Quad meet upped the ante against Beijing

China has found no direct mention in the Quad Joint Leaders’ Statement of more than 3,000 words, but a read-out of the document and events around the meeting point to a toughened tonality even as the scope of the grouping was sought to be widened. This much was clear in both Quad obligations and related developments at Tokyo. Of immediate consequence is the commitment in the joint statement that Quad partners would spend $50 billion-plus of infrastructure assistance and investment in the Indo-Pacific over the next five years, a direct challenge to China’s mammoth Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The timing of this announcement can be considered opportune not least because of the serious questions that have arisen over the manner in which China has gone about implementing the BRI, a weakness that the pandemic years have accentuated. It also committed to address debt issues, which the pandemic has exacerbated in several countries.

Also well-timed was Monday’s announcement, outside of the Quad, of a 13-country Indo-Pacific Economic Forum (IPEF). As an economic partnership that moves beyond the security-focused Quad grouping, the IPEF can also be considered an adroit diplomatic move, enabling participation by smaller Asian countries that have similar apprehensions about Chinese regional hegemonic intentions. Though the IPEF agenda is yet to be fleshed out — it appears to be a standards- and process-setting coalition rather than a trade-oriented one — Beijing has read the intent clearly enough by describing it as an “economic Nato”, an extension of its long-standing description of the Quad as an “Asian Nato”. A specific reference in the joint statement to championing the “maritime rule-based order including in the East and South China Seas”, when read with US President Joe Biden’s somewhat injudicious declaration that the US military would defend Taiwan if China invaded it, signals a substantial upping of the ante against China.

For India, the outcome of the Tokyo visit was mixed. Though the Quad members appeared to have obliquely accepted the constraints that dictate India’s outlier position on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, there are other points of departure on broader policy issues. The current data location controversy, for instance, is at odds with the Quad commitment to collective cybersecurity, and India’s growing de facto dependence on coal may be out of sync with the group’s climate change adaptation and mitigation programme under the acronym, Q-CHAMP. The prime minister’s crowded schedule of meetings with the Japanese business and investment community presented an opportunity to lay out the government’s massive infrastructure and asset monetisation programmes and to assess the progress of signature projects such as the Bullet train, which involves Japanese collaboration.

Perhaps the biggest point of contention may be India’s commitment to the IPEF when it has chosen to stay out of an explicit trade agreement like the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). Though it is true that the IPEF is likely to be focused on such issues as standards, trade facilitation, and other best trade practices, the fact that several RCEP member-countries have signed on to the IPEF suggests that India may find itself more isolated in one of the world’s most dynamic trade networks.