In the wake of the rescheduled Quad leaders’ summit in Japan, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is following Anthony Albanese back to Sydney for a big get-together with Australia’s half-million-strong Indian community.

The Quad is, nominally, an alignment of Indo-Pacific democracies. No one questions that Australia and Japan are democracies, and although many have their doubts about the United States, few responsible institutions take such doubts seriously.