Rubio's visit executes a good repair job for India and Asian Quad allies

The broad agenda of India-US cooperation has been reaffirmed, but emerging US-China bonhomie raises questions over the future of Quad

The visit of United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Marco Rubio to India from May 23 to 26 had two components, separated by a visit to the Taj Mahal. One was bilateral, involving talks with his Indian counterpart, S Jaishankar, while the other was to attend a Quadrilateral foreign ministers meeting, the third under President Donald Trump’s second term.

 

The foreign minister of Australia, Penny Wong, and Japan, Toshimitsu Motegi, were also able to hold bilateral meetings with

 

Mr Rubio on the sidelines of the Quad meeting. These bilateral meetings would have been as important as, if not more, than the multilateral one. One should examine the bilaterals separately from the Quad meeting.

 

Mr Rubio’s visit was clearly a deliberate effort on the part of the US to repair its relations with India, which have seen a serious downturn over the past year. Not only has President Trump singled out India for penal tariffs on account of its purchase of Russian oil, while exempting China, Turkey, and even Hungary — all significant buyers of Russian oil and gas — he has often used disparaging language about India, once describing it as a “dead economy”.

 

Several of his administration officials have used even more abusive language for India and this has been echoed within the MAGA constituency. India has also faced the brunt of Mr Trump’s anti-immigration crusade, with limitations on H1-B visas, which had for years been a passport to career advancement for professional Indians.

 

The growing bonhomie with Pakistan’s military leadership, and the prominence Pakistan has been accorded as a mediator in the ongoing war with Iran, has brought back the spectre of India-Pakistan hyphenation and concerns about Pakistan being able, once again, to draw support both from the US and China, even during days of acute confrontation between these two patrons.

 

More significant has been the prospect of a degree of strategic accommodation between the US and China, reinforced by Mr Trump’s recent visit to Beijing. The two sides agreed to pursue constructively, “strategic stability” and engage in a dialogue on a range of contentious issues, including economic security, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence. The setting up of a Board of Trade to handle trade-related issues and a Board on Investment to promote, within clearly laid parameters, two-way investment, show that de-risking rather than decoupling from China is now the preferred US strategy. Economic security is now clearly an integral part of national security. This shrinks the room to manoeuvre for countries like India. Even small shifts in relations between the two strongest powers — what Mr Trump calls the G-2 — mean larger shifts for other partners on both sides.

 

It is this realisation that explains the visit of the Russian President to China days after Mr Trump’s departure. It also explains Mr Rubio’s visit to India in its wake. Both powers, the US and China need to reassure allies and partners that they continue to be important, despite the shift in US-China relations.

 

Judging by the atmospherics surrounding the visit and the warm sentiments expressed by Mr Rubio in his numerous public statements, one may conclude that the repair job has been largely successful and that the broad agenda of India-US cooperation in diverse domains, including, defence, technology and counter-terrorism, will remain unaffected for the foreseeable future. This is a plus for India.

 

The convening of Quad may be seen through the same prism. It is designed to convey that the pursuit of strategic stability with China does not alter the US Indo-Pacific strategy. If China is signalling that its “no-limits partnership” with Russia remains unchanged, as does its tacit support for Russia in its war on Ukraine, then it is in the US’ interest to convey that its Indo-Pacific strategy, aimed at constraining China, remains in place.

 

This may be the intent, but if nothing has changed, then what is the content of  the “strategic stability” now being pursued? There is merit, therefore, in acknowledging the reassurance but remaining on guard with respect to a significant shift in the geopolitical strategic environment. The shift, if it continues to unfold, will not be compatible with the reassurances being extended.

 

One needs to watch what happens in the three summits that Mr Trump and Xi Jinping are committed to holding this year: One bilateral meeting, likely in September, and the other two on the sidelines of the forthcoming G-20 and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings, respectively. These will give a clearer indication of the content of the strategic stability that the two sides are committed to pursuing.

 

The Quad meeting in Delhi is important because its convening reflects a US reappraisal of its value in terms of managing China. Quad remains useful as one more bargaining counter for the US, just as the China-Russia partnership is for China. Mr Rubio described Quad as the linchpin of its Indo-Pacific strategy, but is this strategy still valid in view of the overarching consensus reached at the Trump-Xi Jinping summit?

 

If the US now looks at Quad only as a bargaining counter and not as a component of an enduring strategic framework in the Indo-Pacific, then it could be sacrificed, or more likely, allowed to slowly atrophy, if the stakes in relations with China were high enough. This happened during the first incarnation of Quad.

 

In 2007, the US decided to set it aside to assuage concerns of China and Russia, whose support it needed for dealing with the Iran and North Korea nuclear issues at the United Nations Security Council. One should be alert to a similar possibility now, even while pursuing, to India’s advantage, the several practical collaboration initiatives announced at the meeting. These have a value beyond Quad and could continue to be pursued by India, Japan and Australia even if the US decided to downgrade its importance.

 

Lastly, the future of Quad is linked to the fate of the US commitment to the defence of Taiwan against a Chinese invasion and its reunification with the mainland by force. If the US changes its language on Taiwan, either to accept that it acknowledges a One China policy, that it opposes Taiwan independence, or that it would reduce and stop arms supplies to Taiwan within a specified time frame, then the US Indo-Pacific strategy would have no legs to stand on. This will matter more to US allies — Japan, Korea and Australia in particular— rather than to India. But it would render Quad as a security partnership irrelevant.

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The author is a former foreign secretary