Sunanda K. Datta-Ray | After Tokyo summit: How will the Quad help India?

Belying fears in some quarters, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or “Quad” as it is more commonly known, which China mocks as “the Asian Nato”, is still riding high. Australia’s relatively unknown new Labour Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, who was elected just a few days ago on Saturday, made sure he was in Tokyo on Tuesday to meet Narendra Modi, Japan’s Fumio Kishida and of course President Joe Biden, who is touring Asia to whip up support against China. Australians dubbed the election in which the sitting Conservative Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, was defeated as the “khaki election” because of the shadow that was cast by China’s military ambitions. When former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe first mooted the Quad in 2007 with US vice-president Dick Cheney, Australian PM John Howard and Dr Manmohan Singh, Singapore’s elder statesman Lee Kuan Yew warned that Indian public opinion would never allow New Delhi to be as closely allied to Washington as Tokyo or Manila. The specific Australian reason for coining the term “khaki election” was that one of the campaign’s main issues -- if not the main issue -- apart from inflation and climate change, was China’s recent deal with the Solomon Islands, paving the way to deploy military personnel in the archipelago, and thereby bringing what looks suspiciously like a new Cold War to Australia’s doorstep.