Don't slip into the 'lazy analogy' of referring Quad as Asian NATO: Jaishankar

Dismissing the notion that the Quad is an Asian NATO, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar has said that there are “interested parties” who advance such analogies and one should not slip into it, underlining that the four-nation grouping is a kind of 21st century way of responding to a more diversified and dispersed world.

Mr. Jaishankar was speaking during a panel discussion on ‘A Sea Change? Regional Order and Security in the Indo-Pacific’ at the Munich Security Conference (MSC) 2022 on Feb. 19 evening.

“Quad is a grouping of four countries who have common interests, common values, a great deal of comfort, who happen to be located at four corners of the Indo-Pacific, who found out that in this world no country, not even the U.S., has the ability to address global challenges all on their own,” Mr. Jaishankar said.

Mr. Jaishankar dismissed the notion that the four-member grouping is an Asian-NATO as “completely misleading term” and said “there are interested parties who advance that kind of analogies”. “I would urge you not to slip into that lazy analogy of an Asian-NATO. It isn’t because there are three countries who are treaty allies. We are not a treaty ally. It doesn’t have a treaty, a structure, a secretariat, it’s a kind of 21st century way of responding to a more diversified, dispersed world,” he said on the Quad grouping which has the United States, India, Australia and Japan as its members.

The incarnation of the Quad started in 2017. It’s not post-2020 development, he said, referring to the tension along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh with China.

“Our relations with the quad partners — the US, Japan and Australia — have steadily improved in the last 20 years. The quad has a value in itself. It is four countries who recognise today that the world would be a better place if they cooperated. And that’s essentially what’s happening,” the Minister said.

He said that the Quad has a range of views on its COVID-19 vaccine project, including on the TRIPS waiver, and observed if it was right to conduct “business as usual” when it comes to producing vaccines to contain the once-in-a-century pandemic with such horrific consequences.