The Indo-Pacific region is a crucial region for balancing the global economy and maritime security. This region is vast and diverse, and home to some of the world's most important energy resources, viz., oil and natural gas. It encompasses the Indian Ocean and the western Pacific Ocean and is home to some of the world's most populous countries, including China, India, and Indonesia.
More importantly, it also harbours some of the world's most important sea trade routes, which carry a significant share of global trade. These maritime routes are critical to world trade, energy resources, and the economic well-being of many countries, both in the Global South and the North. The region boasts a uniquely diverse ecosystem, including coral reefs, mangroves, and marine biodiversity hotspots.
Markedly, it is also a breeding ground of conflicts amidst rising tensions between China and the United States, maritime disputes, and stark instances of terrorism.
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Why are the United States, China, and other major powers of the world competing for influence in the area? The Indo-Pacificregion is a major hub of economic activity, with a combined GDP of over $62 trillion in 2025.
What is the QUAD?
The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD) is an alliance among four nations—the United States, India, Japan, and Australia—created to promote a free and open Indo-Pacific through cooperation on security, technology, and economic resilience. The QUAD originated from the collaboration of these four countries during the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami relief efforts. They formed the Tsunami Core Group to organise relief operations and aid affected regions. It was the effort of the then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that turned the informal alliance into a more formal arrangement in 2007. It emerged as a four-nation alliance for security dialogue with a common objective to strengthen maritime security along the "Confluence of the Two Seas", a notion mooted by Abe.
There was a strong pitch by Japan and the US to forge strategic partnerships to neutralise China's increasing influence in the region.
The first meeting of the Quad was held during the ASEAN Regional Forum in May 2007, and the group went on to conduct several naval exercises in the Bay of Bengal. However, over the years, the QUAD’s diplomatic forte waned and wielded less power in the geo-political developments of the Indo-Pacific. Though touted as an alliance of four democracies, each nation had a different approach to its role in QUAD.
For a decade, the QUAD remained largely dormant, though trilateral and bilateral exercises continued at the maritime front. In this period, several developments happened such as the biennial AUSINDEX naval exercise, Japan joining the Malabar naval exercise, South China Sea territorial disputes, China-Japan dispute over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands, and the India-China border dispute in Dhoklam.
All this created a perfect backdrop for the four nations to revive the QUAD, and they came together again on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit in Manila in 2017. This revival saw fresh activities of the QUAD, and the four nations began to see value in their common maritime security exercises.
When Biden was elected as US President in 2021in the wake of the COVID-19 aftermath, he promptly took the initiative to set in place a Leaders Summit with a virtual one in March, followed by a physical one in September of the same year.
The QUAD evolved rapidly into a flexible mechanism for countering China's revisionism while advancing shared democratic values.
The smouldering cauldron
Recent geopolitical shifts, including China's intensified maritime aggression in the South China Sea and the return of President Trump in 2025, have reinforced the QUAD's role amid the intense US-China rivalry.
Several maritime disputes and security threats (See Table I and Table II) highlight the Indo-Pacific’s volatility, reinforcing the need for collaborative security efforts that offer realistic stability in the region.
The QUAD nations have attempted to counter China's dominance by enhancing maritime security, regulating critical minerals supply chains, and coming up with infrastructure alternatives to the Belt and Road Initiative.
Table I: Maritime Disputes in the Indo-Pacific
South China Sea Disputes: Competing territorial claims involving China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, and Taiwan. China’s expansive Nine-Dash Line claim overlaps with the Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) of several ASEAN states, leading to frequent naval standoffs.
East China Sea Dispute (Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands): A long-standing maritime and territorial dispute between China and Japan over uninhabited islands, with implications for regional security and freedom of navigation.
India–China Maritime Tensions in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR): China’s increasing naval presence, port access arrangements, and submarine deployments in the IOR raise strategic concerns for India, particularly around the sea lines of communication.
Taiwan Strait:Escalating naval and air manoeuvres by China, countered by US freedom-of-navigation operations, making the strait a major flashpoint affecting global maritime trade.
Korean Peninsula Maritime Boundaries: Disputes over the Northern Limit Line between North and South Korea, occasionally resulting in naval skirmishes.
Table II: Terrorism/Maritime Security Threats
2008 Mumbai Terror Attacks (India):Terrorists infiltrated India via sea routes, exposing vulnerabilities in coastal and port security and highlighting the maritime dimension of terrorism.
Abu Sayyaf Group (Philippines): Engaged in maritime terrorism, piracy, and kidnapping in the Sulu–Celebes Seas, affecting shipping and regional trade.
Piracy and Maritime Terrorism in the Strait of Malacca: Though reduced, the strait remains vulnerable due to its strategic importance and dense traffic, prompting coordinated patrols by regional states.
Islamist Militancy in Southern Thailand and Indonesia: Groups such as Jemaah Islamiyah have exploited maritime routes for movement, logistics, and arms trafficking.
Potential Terror Threats to Ports and Offshore Infrastructure: Critical maritime infrastructure—ports, LNG terminals, offshore platforms—across the Indo-Pacific are considered high-value targets for asymmetric attacks.
The QUAD boosts regional stability through minilateralism, engaging ASEAN through democratic strategies, which are vital as the 2025 trade statistics revealed that the Indo-Pacific region accounted for nearly half of the global GDP.
For India, it anchors US ties and balances China without relying on formal alliances. A few key initiatives include the Indo-Pacific Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA), Quad Critical Minerals Initiative, and supply chain resilience efforts, with dialogue through leadership meetings at ministerial levels.
The Trump challenge
The US-India Trade Crisis has been brewing since Trump’s second term began. The Trump administration imposed 50 per cent tariffs on Indian exports in August 2025, citing India's Russian oil imports and strategic autonomy, leading to a sharp fall in diplomatic ties. India put on hold the US defence deals worth $3.6 billion and chose to delay its scheduled QUAD leaders' summit. This undermined mutual trust, with analysts calling it the worst US-India crisis in two decades.
Hostilities escalated between the allied nations over defence spending, with the US coercing them to increase their defence budgets, creating irritants within the grouping. Trump's tariffs also hit Japan and Australia, forcing Tokyo into $550 billion in US-directed investments. Critics warned that the QUAD was drifting toward irrelevance against China's threats. India, being the only non-ally member, was cautious about the QUAD migrating to become a mere anti-China grouping. However, it was willing to forge ahead in cooperation for maritime security and connectivity.
Institutionalising QUAD
At the Quad Foreign Ministers’ meeting in July 2025, the joint statement of QUAD outlined cooperation on maritime issues. Although a QUAD summit is yet to take place in 2026, there are clear signs that the member countries are willing to move forward at a “working level.”
At the ‘India Maritime Week’, an annual international confluence of several nations held in late October 2025, the Quad Ports of the Future initiative was announced, led by India.
Recently, in November 2025, Australia, Japan, India, and the US also coordinated in the annual Malabar exercise, separate from the QUAD, but reinforcing maritime strategic alignment. Commenting on the Malabar exercise, Chief of Joint Operations Vice Admiral Justin Jones of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) said that “partnerships and joint exercises are more important than ever” with the rapidly evolving security challenges in the region.
Through various diplomatic engagements over the past few months, despite turbulence within, all four members have reaffirmed their commitment to a Free and Open Indo-Pacific. Experts consider this a positive for the future of QUAD, as these initiatives have been institutionalised such that they are immune to any geopolitical instability.
Future initiatives from India being explored include evolving AI-ENGAGE for boosting agriculture tech, STEM fellowships, and a potential Quad Trade Agreement to boost a manufacturing shift from China.
The QUAD is also hoping to assume a multi-dimensional focus that addresses several concerns beyond security, such as health, infrastructure, and climate change.
It is felt that QUAD may need to drive the vast infrastructure requirements in the growing Indo-Pacific economies. There is an overwhelming presence of Chinese investments currently in the region due to their massive BRI-linked economic projects. Between 2017 and 2024, BRI-related investments in the region were tallied at approximately US$440 billion.
The QUAD should ideally look at expanding investment in areas such as green energy, digital infrastructure, and maritime connectivity.
On a closing note, it is interesting to note that the QUAD is an informal organisation that operates with no formal institutional structure, secretariat, governing body, or permanent headquarters.
Scholars of international relations describe it as more of a dialogue than a formal organisation. It is also often cited as an example of a “minilateral” organisation, as opposed to a multilateral association like the ASEAN, RCEP, or EU, or a formal, treaty-based alliance like NATO.
While many feel this framework hinders consensus on key issues, it also provides QUAD a unique status that enables it to work on specific areas with other regionally powerful organisations like ASEAN or IORA without the confines of a trade or military agreement.
The author is professor at the School of Maritime Management, Indian Maritime University, Chennai.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of THE WEEK.