NEW DELHI: The vaccine initiative was the biggest takeaway from the first-ever Quad summit held on Friday, experts said, but the meet did not address some key issues with regard to China.
“The Covid Vaccine Initiative will serve as a great model for future collaborations and provide the opportunity for the partners to finally start working together towards tangible goals. This will solidify the idea of Quad as a platform for partners to coordinate and pool in resources towards common ends,” Kriti Upadhyaya, a research associate at Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said. Harinder Sekhon, a veteran Indo-US ties analyst, echoed her views.
“The focus is not only on traditional security but on soft power and non-traditional security threats. The establishment of sustainable supply chains, safeguarding emerging and critical technologies, weather mapping to monitor natural calamities and climate change are the key areas of focus. Sustaining these soft power initiatives will improve the lives of billions of people in the Indo-Pacific region and pose a bigger challenge to Chinese assertiveness and its economic outreach. The vaccine initiative is a major step in this direction,” she said.
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The summit, according to Upadhyaya, was timely as it took place on a day when the WMCC held its meeting. “The Quad Summit was President Biden’s first multilateral engagement and took place on the same day as the India-China disengagement talks. This signalling serves to dispel concerns about the new US administration’s seriousness towards the Quad as well as suspicions that a reproaching with China would mean India backing away from the Quad, fearing Chinese backlash,” she said.
However, infrastructure cooperation was one agenda that was missing, according to Sekhon. Upadhyaya concurred and said, “China’s dominance in that sphere is rising. Hopefully, future Quad meetings will explore infrastructure and related issues,” she said. Government officials said the grouping will take one priority at a time. “With time, issues of regional and global importance will also be taken up,” an official said.