Assessing the Quad: prospects and limitations of quadrilateral cooperation for advancing Australia's interests

    Research output: Book/ReportCommissioned reportpeer-review

    Abstract

    After a ten-year hiatus, the Australia-India-Japan-US Security Quadrilateral Dialogue — informally known as the Quad — was resurrected in 2017 with the aim to support a ‘free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific Region’. While there are important differences among the four countries on threat perceptions, military capability, strategic priority, capacity to bear the costs of potential retaliation, strategic culture and constitutional imperatives, these differences place limitations on Quadrilateral cooperation, but do not preclude it. All four countries have common interests in maintaining a stable balance of power in the region, freedom of the seas, an open rules-based economic order, to counter debt-trap diplomacy and to limit the use of coercion by a state to assert territorial claims. Under the leadership of President Xi Jinping, China has become more assertive and ambitious, vigorously pressing its claims in the East and South China seas and promoting its BRI. Concerned to preserve the existing liberal rules-based order, the Quad states have already responded by increasing their cooperation. Despite the COVID-19 shock and the domestic upheavals and distractions it poses, this cooperation will continue to deepen. While India is an outlier among the four states because of different perceptions of the threat China poses, this does not prevent the four states from cooperating more deeply on standard setting, diplomatic messaging, practical economic measures, and military cooperation, to sustain the liberal rules-based order which has been beneficial to all of them.
    Original languageEnglish
    PublisherThe Lowy Institute
    Commissioning bodyThe Lowy Institute
    Number of pages39
    Publication statusPublished - May 2020

    Publication series

    NameAnalysis Paper
    PublisherThe Lowy Institute

    Keywords

    • Indo-pacific security
    • Australia foreign policy
    • Maritime Security Indo-Pacific
    • Australia-India foreign relations
    • Australia-US Relations
    • Australia-China relations
    • Australia-Japan relations

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Assessing the Quad: prospects and limitations of quadrilateral cooperation for advancing Australia's interests'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this