‘Stars not aligning’: Quad summit in doubt for second year running

The high-profile Quad grouping of Australia, the United States, Japan and India is facing renewed questions about its ability to serve as a democratic bulwark against China after US President Joe Biden scuppered plans for a leaders’ meeting for the second year running.

Preparations were under way for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to host Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the other Quad leaders on January 27, but those plans were ditched after Biden declined an invitation to travel to India.

The leaders of Australia, Japan, the US and India held a Quad meeting on the sidelines of the G7 in Hiroshima last year after the planned Sydney Quad summit was cancelled. Credit: Christopher Jue

The previous Quad summit, scheduled to be held in Sydney last May, was cancelled at the last minute when Biden withdrew because of the US debt ceiling crisis, leading to a makeshift leaders’ meeting being organised on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Hiroshima.

Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party is up for re-election in April and May while Biden faces a tough election battle in November, most likely against predecessor Donald Trump.

Elevating the Quad to a leaders-level grouping has been a central feature of Biden’s push to compete with China for influence in the Indo-Pacific and has boosted Australia’s prominence on the international stage.

The Hindu newspaper reported last month that Albanese was willing to fly to India on the afternoon of Australia Day to meet fellow Quad leaders the following day, despite growing criticism from the opposition about his amount of international travel.

Indian government sources told the paper that New Delhi was “looking for revised dates” for a leaders’ meeting later in the year while a US State Department spokesperson said: “We defer to India, as hosts of the next Quad summit, on any announcements of a date or location.”

A spokeswoman for Albanese said: “The government is proud of what we have delivered for the Quad so far. We will continue to work closely with my Quad colleagues in support of an open, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific region where sovereignty is respected.”

Michael Green, the chief executive of the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre, said he would not expect Biden to travel to India this year because of two factors: the president’s re-election campaign and complications caused by the US Justice Department charging an Indian citizen in November with plotting to assassinate a Sikh separatist leader on US soil.

Green, who recently visited Washington for meetings with senior White House officials, said he expected Biden to significantly curtail his international travel schedule this year.

“The goal politically is to focus on inflation, the economy,” said Green, who played a key role in the creation of the Quad as a senior official in the George W. Bush administration.

“Travelling to India or the Asia-Pacific doesn’t help Biden’s re-election chances and that’s what he will be focused on for the next 11 months.”

Officials in Beijing have repeatedly accused the Quad of being an “exclusive clique” ganging up against China, although the Quad leaders rarely mention China by name in their joint statements.

Noting that much of the Quad’s work was conducted by foreign policy officials, Green said a substitute leaders meeting could be held virtually or on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Italy in June if a summit in India proved impossible.

Ian Hall, an expert on Indian politics at Griffith University, said: “Getting the Quad meeting to happen this year will be hard: the stars are not aligning at the moment.

“And then you have a problem because momentum comes from the leaders and that doesn’t happen if they are not meeting.”

Hall said Modi would have been disappointed that Biden declined an invitation to visit India for its January 26 Republic Day as well as the planned Quad summit.

“They really wanted Biden there and wanted the Quad summit to happen,” Hall said of the Modi government.

Hall said there was a growing scepticism about the Quad among foreign policy elites in both New Delhi and Washington.

“There’s a big question mark hanging over it,” he said of the grouping.

“In parts of Washington, there is a sense that the Quad hasn’t delivered for the US and people are asking, ‘What’s in it for us?’”

Biden hosted the first in-person leaders’ meeting of the Quad at the White House in 2021 and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida hosted the second summit in May 2022, just days after Albanese’s election victory.

The 2023 Quad meeting, held on the sidelines of the G7 in Hiroshima in May, resulted in pledges to build undersea cable systems and fund infrastructure development and telecommunications across the Asia-Pacific.

Green said there was no indication of any waning enthusiasm for the Quad in the Biden administration, but that domestic politics always took precedence over foreign policy in an election year.

He added that he did not believe the Quad would be a victim of a second Trump presidency because Trump revived the dialogue in 2017 as a way to counter China’s growing clout in the Indo-Pacific.

Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter.