Shifting US geopolitical priorities are affecting Quad's relevance

The joint statement issued by the Quad foreign ministers’ meeting on Tuesday highlighted the 19-year-old grouping’s growing struggle for relevance as the focus of the United States  (US) foreign policy shifts towards the American hemisphere and West Asia. 

 

To be sure, the language of the joint statements issued by the four members — the US, India, Japan and Australia — reflects a genuine effort to project an industrious agenda of practical cooperation in such areas as critical minerals, maritime surveillance, port infrastructure, and energy security to counter doubts over its viability. This could be interpreted as an encouraging sign for the grouping. 

 

Despite this, substantive progress remained conspicuously absent. For instance, a key purpose of this meeting was to set a date for the leaders’ summit, which has been indefinitely postponed since 2025. 

 

That remains an open question. In a sense, this uncertainty over the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, forged as a counterbalance to China’s rising power in the Indo-Pacific, reflects shifting geopolitical realities. Most important among these is the détente between the US and China, as reflected in President Donald Trump’s meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, in Beijing earlier this month (with a reciprocal visit by Mr Xi to Washington planned for September). 

 

Central to this development is the status of Taiwan. Its continuation as an independent nation remains critical to Indo-Pacific security. Yet during Mr Trump’s visit, Mr Xi and the Chinese press sought to emphasise the “One China” principle, which asserts that Taiwan is an integral part of the People’s Republic. 

 

Although the US State Department has underlined that there is no change in its policy of informal political and military support for Taiwan, the view from the White House signals an unmistakable decoupling between the two nations. If this ambivalence raises doubts about the basic significance of Quad, the recent articulation of Mr Trump’s strategic foreign-policy vision underlines the point. 

 

Dubbed the “Donroe Doctrine” — a pun on the 1823 Monroe Doctrine, which it essentially updates — it positions the US as the dominant security guarantor of the Western Hemisphere. 

 

The war in West Asia has added to the Quad nations’ concerns.  

 

The joint US-Israeli war on Iran, which began on February 28, has led to a substantial drawdown in the US defence armada from the Asia-Pacific to West Asia. With US forces using up more than half their pre-war stockpiles of critical munitions in the war against Iran, Quad allies, notably Japan, have become increasingly worried that they will not be able to count on the US to come to their defence in the event of Chinese aggression in the South China and East China Seas. 

 

There is some irony in Quad’s predicament in Mr Trump’s second term. It was in his first term that the grouping, which was largely moribund for a decade, was revived.  The reconstituted coalition was revived during a 2017 East Asia Summit in the Philippines. 

 

It saw the Trump administration officially rename the US Pacific Command as the US Indo-Pacific Command. It was during this time that India and the US signed several foundational defence agreements. Under President Joe Biden, the informal grouping held its first ever “Quad Leaders’ Summit”, conducted virtually because of the pandemic. Since then, there have been six summits, the last being in 2024. India’s plans to host a summit have since been unfulfilled. 

 

The latest visit did not advance that agenda significantly.