Quad has a role to help secure Indo-Pacific regional stability

As tensions worsen in the Taiwan Strait, the Quad is also needed to deter potential forced reunification between the PRC and Taiwan.

- DARREN SPINCK LONDON

Peace and prosperity are the cornerstone principles of a free and open Indo-Pacific. The region includes half of the world's population and 60% of the global gross domestic product (GDP), making regional diplomacy, consensus building, and security necessary for helping maintain an uninterrupted flow of goods and services. With the People's Republic of China (PRC) rapidly realising its aspiration as a regional hegemon and the US-led unipolar world transitioning to a multipolar order, counterbalances are needed to ensure that Chinese Communist Party (CCP) policies do not threaten Indo-Pacific stability.

India, set to become the world's third-largest economy by 2027 and forecast to double its GDP in the next 10 years, will increasingly influence decision making on regional security, along with New Delhi's Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) partners, the United States, Australia, and Japan. The Quad and its like-minded partners (United Kingdom) have the capabilities to implement a two-pronged defence and economic denial strategy in the Indo-Pacific to counter Beijing's objective of establishing predominance throughout the region.

The potential for geo-economic disorder arising from PRC hegemony in the Indo-Pacific is a threat to India's future economic growth trajectory and imperils overall global prosperity. CCP economic policies aiming to further cement predominance, risk supply chain disruptions, inflationary shocks, and regional conflict. To deter these disruptive CCP policies, the Quad must counter the PRC's economic pressure on trading partners and its mercantilist-communist market distortions. The Indo-Pacific market needs an alternative to the PRC's "Dual Circulation" economic strategy, which curtails mutually beneficial foreign trade and develops "controllable" supply chains in China's favour.

As tensions worsen in the Taiwan Strait, the Quad is also needed to deter potential forced reunification between the PRC and Taiwan.