QUAD Summit 2021

Sep 23: QUAD Summit 2021 – https://youtu.be/B5D10_0zc84 

INTERNATIONAL/ SECURITY

• GS-2: Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India’s interests

QUAD Summit 2021

In News: On September 24, President Biden hosted Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, and Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga of Japan at the White House for the first-ever in-person Leaders’ Summit of the Quad. The leaders have put forth ambitious initiatives that 

A. Deepen our ties and advance practical cooperation on 21st-century challenges: Ending the COVID-19 pandemic, including by increasing production and access to safe and effective vaccines;

• Through $3.3 billion in the COVID-19 Crisis Response Emergency Support Loan program, Japan will continue to help regional countries to procure safe, effective, and quality-assured vaccines. 
• Australia will deliver $212 million in grant aid to purchase vaccines for Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Australia will allocate $219 million to support last-mile vaccine rollouts and lead in coordinating the Quad’s last-mile delivery efforts in those regions. 
• Japan, through Japan Bank for International Cooperation, will work with India to enhance key investments of approximately $100 million in the healthcare sector related to COVID-19, including vaccine and treatment drugs. 
• Further strengthen their science and technology cooperation in support of the 100-Day Mission—collaboration on current and future clinical trials, such as launching additional sites for the international Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines (ACTIV) trials, which can expedite investigation of promising new vaccines and therapeutics, while at the same time supporting countries in the region to improve their capacity to undertake scientifically sound clinical research. Will support the call for a “global pandemic radar” and will improve our viral genomic surveillance, including by working together to strengthen and expand the WHO Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System (GISRS).

B. Infrastructure

• Launch the Quad Infrastructure Coordination Group: Share assessments of regional infrastructure needs and coordinate respective approaches to deliver transparent, high-standards infrastructure. 
• Lead on High-Standards Infrastructure

C. Climate

• Will focus their efforts on the themes of climate ambition, including working on 2030 targets for national emissions and renewable energy, clean-energy innovation and deployment, as well as adaptation, resilience, and preparedness. 
• Commit to pursue enhanced actions in the 2020s to meet anticipated energy demand and decarbonize at pace and scale to keep our climate goals within reach in the Indo-Pacific.
• Additional efforts include working together on methane abatement in the natural-gas sector and on establishing responsible and resilient clean-energy supply chains. The Quad will:
• Form a Green-Shipping Network: Uniquely situated to deploy green-port infrastructure and clean-bunkering fuels at scale, Quad partners will launch a Quad Shipping Taskforce which will organize its work around several lines of efforts and aims to establish two to three Quad low-emission or zero-emission shipping corridors by 2030.
• Establish a Clean-Hydrogen Partnership: To strengthen and reduce costs across all elements of the clean-hydrogen value chain, leveraging existing bilateral and multilateral hydrogen initiatives in other fora. This includes technology development and efficiently scaling up the production of clean hydrogen (hydrogen produced from renewable energy, fossil fuels with carbon capture and sequestration, and nuclear for those who choose to deploy it), identification and development of delivery infrastructure to safely and efficiently transport, store, and distribute clean hydrogen for end-use applications, and stimulating market demand to accelerate trade in clean hydrogen in the Indo-Pacific region.
• Enhance Climate Adaptation, Resilience, and Preparedness: Quad countries commit to increasing the Indo-Pacific region’s resilience to climate change by improving critical climate information-sharing and disaster-resilient infrastructure. The Quad countries will convene a Climate & Information Services Task Force and build a new technical facility through the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure that will provide technical assistance in small island developing states.

D. People-to-People Exchange and Education: Launch the Quad Fellowship: The Fellowship will sponsor 100 students per year—25 from each Quad country—to pursue masters and doctoral degrees at leading STEM graduate universities in the United States

E. Critical and Emerging Technologies: Quad leaders are committed to working together to foster an open, accessible, and secure technology ecosystem. 

• Publish a Quad Statement of Principles: On technology design, development, governance, and use 
• Establish Technical Standards Contact Groups: On Advanced Communications and Artificial Intelligence focusing on standards-development activities as well as foundational pre-standardization research.
• Launch a Semiconductor Supply Chain Initiative: To map capacity, identify vulnerabilities, and bolster supply-chain security for semiconductors and their vital components. 
• Support 5G Deployment and Diversification: Launched a Track 1.5 industry dialogue on Open RAN deployment and adoption, coordinated by the Open RAN Policy Coalition
• Monitor Biotechnology Scanning: Will monitor trends in critical and emerging technologies, starting with advanced biotechnologies, including synthetic biology, genome sequencing, and biomanufacturing. In the process, we will identify related opportunities for cooperation.

F. Cybersecurity-Launch a Quad Senior Cyber Group: To advance work between government and industry on driving continuous improvements in areas including adoption and implementation of shared cyber standards; development of secure software; building workforce and talent; and promoting the scalability and cybersecurity of secure and trustworthy digital infrastructure.

G. Space- 

• Share Satellite Data to Protect the Earth and its Waters: To exchange Earth observation satellite data and analysis on climate-change risks and the sustainable use of oceans and marine resources. Sharing this data will help Quad countries to better adapt to climate change and to build capacity in other Indo-Pacific states that are at grave climate risk, in coordination with the Quad Climate Working group.
• Enable Capacity-Building for Sustainable Development: To manage risks and challenges.

Conclusion

As new geopolitical and geo-economic realities emerge in the Indo-Pacific, India is now a critical node in the emerging network of variable geometries in the region. There are important opportunities in the evolving dynamic for New Delhi, as new alliances are crafted and new goals enunciated.

The Quad is here to stay and its outlines are becoming clear as a ‘flexible group of like-minded countries’ that will work together on diverse and urgent areas. The question now is the willingness and ability to forge ahead.

Can you answer these questions?

1. Essay: India- Pharmacy of the World
2. The Quad offers a great opportunity for reforming China-centred economic globalisation. Comment.
3. Quad fills important gap that has emerged in contemporary times. Do you agree? Substantiate your views.