Quad Leaders Trade Symbolism Over Substance

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was asked today why he is skipping the UN leaders’ summit in New York next week when he is already in the United States for a meeting of the Quad.

But what makes a gathering of the Quad a priority, right now?

I’ve asked that question in a column published this week in The Hindu. My answer? There is no compelling reason for the countries to meet at this moment, at least at the leadership level.

Japan’s Fumio Kishida will step aside as prime minister within days.

Joe Biden will be gone from the White House within months.

Albanese himself is under pressure at home, facing the prospect of losing an election due by next year.

Such is the turn-over at the top that by the time Narendra Modi convenes the next Quad leaders’ meeting as the host in 2025, three new faces could be sitting around the table.

The timing appears to be driven more by the calendar than need. After the elevation of the Quad to a leader’s summit in 2021, the aim was to “meet regularly”, which came to mean “annually”. The 2022 meeting in Tokyo offered Albanese a handy introduction to the other leaders, just days after he took office. But then Biden pulled out of the meeting in Sydney last year, so they met instead on the sidelines of the G7. A plan to hold a summit in India this year couldn’t be fulfilled with the US election looming.

The first leaders’ meeting came at a time of high stress: the pandemic, India’s border clash with China, and Beijing’s campaign of economic coercion against Australia. The gathering offered reassurance and sent a message of solidarity.

But in the few years since, differences between the four countries have been magnified. India’s continued ties with Russia, for example. US concern over an alleged assassination plot in New York directed by Indian intelligence. A “nest of spies” in Australia said to be tied back to India.

None of these controversies have derailed cooperation. But it has undermined the notion of strategic alignment. A “practical agenda” has instead become the Quad mantra. The pledge involves fine sounding common goals across the region relating to technology, energy, humanitarian assistance and more.

These are all aims that could be, and are, worked out by officials and ministers. It does not justify the time of leaders.

Albanese only offered a few blandishments to explain why the Quad is important. “Four great democracies driven by our common objectives,” he said, “security, stability, but also opportunity as well.” He’ll doubtless have more of substance to say in the coming days.

But he also acknowledged “it’s a long journey to come to the Quad” so the outcome should be judged against the effort.

Daniel Flitton is one of Australia’s most experienced foreign affairs journalists and is now Managing Editor of the Lowy Institute’s international magazine, The Interpreter.

This article appeared originally at Lowy Institute's the interpreter.