“The way China threatens us today requires us to dynamically improve national economic capacity, not only the military capability, in partnerships with intensive international coalitions for which QUAD could be the central fulcrum for the time being,” Raja Mohan said.
Moderating the discussion, Admiral Sunil Lanba expounded on the genesis of Quadrilateral Security Dialogue or Quad as a club of four nations comprising India, US, Japan and Australia which was mooted by the then Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2007. Forged in the wake of coordination amongst these four democracies during the 2004 Tsunami, the ambitious grouping went into limbo owing to Australia’s reluctance to antagonise China then. Its prominence in 2017 has been a response to China’s assertiveness in the region, he said.