No plan to include India and Japan in AUKUS security alliance yet: US
Washington: Though India has opted to publicly downplay the impact of the recently launched security alliance between Australia, the UK and the US (AUKUS) on the Quad – even as both groupings focus on the Indo-Pacific region – it is secretly pleased that the latter has been “de-securitised” as a result, a person familiar with the discussions said on the condition of anonymity
Washington: Though India has opted to publicly downplay the impact of the recently launched security alliance between Australia, the UK and the US (AUKUS) on the Quad – even as both groupings focus on the Indo-Pacific region – it is secretly pleased that the latter has been “de-securitised” as a result, a person familiar with the discussions said on the condition of anonymity.
India has been wary about “militarising” the Quad — the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue it conducts with Australia, Japan and the US. However, AUKUS, with its unabashed security bearing, has “de-securitised” the Quad, and this “is what we have wanted”, the person added.
“We have no intention of militarising the Quad,” the person said ahead of the crucial talks Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to hold with US officials over the next two days.
The person insisted that a lot of people have mistakenly tied the Malabar military exercises — which India has hosted and conducted with Japan and US for years and now Australia joining it — to the Quad as the group’s security and defence aspects. “They are not linked,” the person added.
There were some talks towards the end of the Trump administration of giving the Quad a formal structure, something like an Indo-Pacific version of the NATO military alliance.
India has enthusiastically welcomed the non-military and non-security direction the Quad has taken in recent months as it has elevated its exchanges to the summit level, driven by President Joe Biden, the person said, pointing to the three working groups launched at the virtual summit of the leaders in March: on Covid-19 vaccines, emerging technologies, and climate.
PM Modi will join President Biden, Australian PM Scott Morrison and Japanese PM Yoshihide Suga for the first in-person summit of the Quad leader on Friday. Biden, who will host the summit, indicated in his maiden UNGA speech on Tuesday that the talks will focus on tackling “challenges ranging from health security to climate to emerging technologies”.
The Indian side is going into the in-person summit with the expectation of building on the initiatives of the March meeting.
PM Modi, who is on his seventh visit to the US as prime minister, has a packed calendar of engagements before and after the Quad summit. On Thursday, he will have a key ceremonial meeting with Vice-President Kamala Harris, the first Indian American to hold the post, in Washington DC.
Their discussions could range from the “management of Covid-19 to issues like cooperation in the high-tech sector and the space sector, where the Vice-President has an interest and a number of areas including resilient and secure supply chain, which is something of great interest to both sides,” the person cited before said.
There is a possibility of an announcement of an India visit by Harris at some stage, with people familiar with the discussions asked to “wait till tomorrow”.
The PM will also take part in a long-overdue bilateral meeting with his Australian counterpart, Morrison, whose last two scheduled visits to India were cancelled. Morrison had given Modi a heads up on the AUKUS announcement.
Modi is scheduled to meet Japanese PM Suga for the last bilateral of the day of Thursday.