The Quad Summit is bizarre political theater

The Biden-summoned White House meeting of the so-called Quad, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, is curious and bizarre by any standard.

Consider the following:

First, the Australian Prime Minister comes here in the midst of two serious crises at home.    One of them is the domestic draconian COVID lockdown with Melbourne police firing live ammunition into crowds of protestors.  On that basis alone, PM Scott Morrison ought to be on a plane headed home to attend to the crisis.  The shooting of unarmed civilians in a democracy is an utter disgrace, and one that threatens the long term stability of Australia.  The fact that the Australian PM, anxious to get his nuclear submarines, seems to put the submarine deal ahead of the security situation of his country is hard to fathom.

The other Australian crisis, the deal the PM has made with Mr. Biden and Mr. Johnson of the UK for eight nuclear submarines, also is a huge diplomatic problem for Australia.  There is substantial home opposition to the submarine deal, because the submarines have nuclear power and Australia is not in the nuclear business. There is a risk of economic and other retaliation from China, which Australia apparently did not expect (but should have).  Likewise there is a danger of retaliation from the EU, and with France having recalled its ambassadors from Canberra and from the United States, France may try next to block the EU-Australia trade deal.  The EU has already shown sympathy to France’s complaint.

Fifty percent of Australia’s wine production is exported to the EU as well as considerable amounts of beef, lamb and mutton.  If the EU-Australia trade deal fails it could disrupt Australia’s economy, which is already suffering because of COVID.  While Australia has long been a devoted and reliable American ally, and a faithful member of the British Commonwealth, the submarine deal is a big and perhaps fatal bump in the road.  It is hard to see how Mr. Morrison can survive the gathering storm.

Second, there is the rather sad case of Japan’s Prime Minister, Yoshihide Suga. He has been the least popular Japanese PM in years, and in his one year in office has caused significant damage to his political party, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.  His popularity before his resignation was below 30%.  Since he has already resigned, anything he does at a high-level meeting as a lame duck PM is open to doubt and question.  Suga would have been well advised to stay home.

Third is the case of Narendra Modi, India’s PM, now in his second term.  Modi likes the limelight and a summit of sorts with the U.S. President is coveted by him.  But since the collapse of Afghanistan, India’s geopolitical situation has deteriorated.  The threat comes from a reworking of the old alliance between Pakistan and the Taliban, which among other things threatens Kashmir.  Without the U.S. in Afghanistan it is now searching for bases elsewhere to compensate. Mr. Modi is in an optics trap if President Biden asks him for cooperation on U.S. military bases in India, or for that matter anything that looks like real military cooperation.  Modi also wants to keep India’s participation in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a Chinese invention that also includes Russia, the Central Asian countries, Pakistan and Iran. (Iran has applied for membership this September and will soon join.)  There are also a number of observer countries and dialogue partners including Turkey. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization has been described as a test bed for Chinese power projection.

This is hardly compatible with the Quad idea, and certainly has nothing at all to do with preserving liberal democratic values, a concept known to make Mr. Modi a little queasy since some of India’s best friends, such as Russia, are hardly paragons of democratic virtue. Supposedly the Quad aims to advance liberal democratic governance.

Fourth is the case of President Joe Biden.  Many questions are swirling around the President’s mental acuity these days, and rightly so.  He is told when he should talk, what he should say and when to shut up (or they turn off his microphone).  It is unlikely that Mr. Biden can do more than speak in vague generalities about such things as climate change, something the Quad is supposed to take up.  With Asia threatened by a restless and ambitious China, facing stiff economic and military competition, focusing on issues of secondary importance appears irreconcilable with the real need.

Finally, there are certain things to remember about the rising threat to peace and security which the U.S., Japan and India face, and which Australia may face in the future as the Chinese close in on them too.  The Quad is a sorry excuse for an alliance, largely because it lacks any quality that would make it functional as such.  There is no central idea in the Quad for collective security.  There are major differences in relationships –the U.S. has a defense treaty with Japan but not with Australia or India. There is no common command system among the countries, and while there was recently an exercise in the western Pacific, it was just that.  In the future the U.S., in trying to appease China, may invite the Chinese to participate in similar exercises.

On the economic front, on Japan’s suggestion, the Quad is supposed to take up the matter of the security of supply of semiconductors.  This is a bizarre item to put on the agenda for a number of reasons.  The first is that Taiwan is the world’s number one producer of semiconductors, vital to the computer, telecommunications, defense and automobile industries.  The next is Korea. Korea, primarily Samsung, is the next largest semiconductor maker but Korea is a weak second to Taiwan. Neither Taiwan nor Korea are members of the Quad.  Japan has a semiconductor industry but it has fallen on hard times and needs massive reinvestment and new technology.  That is unlikely to be forthcoming because investors might not be willing to commit to the sick man of chips.  India has almost no semiconductor industry and Australia has none.  The top U.S. chip design companies are using Taiwan Semiconductor.  Even, most famously, Intel has been in discussions with Taiwan Semi (TSMC) about producing its most advanced chips there.

When it comes to 3 nanometer production capability, the U.S. has no fabs at all; only Taiwan.  The Quad can talk all it wants, but it won’t matter.  More to the point, if the Quad were really serious about security of supply, it would move to protect Taiwan.

And perhaps the worst part about the Quad is that it does not include Taiwan, the country most at risk from Chinese threats. If the Quad had any hope of evolving into something serious, it should have found a way to include Taiwan.  This would have been extremely important, even if mostly symbolic.  But, as always since 1979, the participants officially don’t recognize Taiwan and ignore it.

There are different ways Taiwan could have been included, for example by inviting Taiwanese Think Tanks to participate in some way in the Quad.  Even that minimalist approach has been excluded, so it seems that the Quad has no chance of developing into a serious impediment to Chinese aggression.

At best the Washington Quad meeting is political theater without substance, if it even rises to that level.