Geo-Economics Of Two Quads

The East and West Asian groupings can multiply India’s trade possibilities via land and sea

- Sanjaya Baru

India’s civilisational and economic footprints across Asia have, through history, stretched from the Mediterranean to the Pacific, from the Indian Ocean littoral to Central Asia. If the arrival of European powers into the region 300 years ago, and their maritime dominance in the Indo-Pacific, disrupted the East-West links, the Partition of India, the geopolitics of the Cold War, and the China-Pakistan axis disrupted India’s links into Eurasia.

The creation of an ‘East Asian’ and a ‘West Asian’ Quad – with India partnering the United States, Japan, Australia, in the East, and the US, Israel and United Arab Emirates, in the West, provides a framework for India’s re-engagement with Asia that remains constrained towards the north by the China-Pakistan axis. It is relevant that all the five partners in the two Quads are both economic and defence partners.

While international relations scholars, with their bias towards political and military affairs, tend to focus on the geopolitics of these Quads, their economic and developmental potential is equally important for India. If the immediate focus of the East Asian Quad was on Covid-19 pandemic, climate change and development of critical and emerging technologies, the West Asian Quad has prioritised trade, technology, big data, digital and physical infrastructure, transport and maritime security.