ABSTRACT
India’s approach to the Quadrilateral consultative forum, which comprises Australia, India, Japan and the United States, is a statement of New Delhi’s plural foreign policy arc in an evolving Indo-Pacific construct. Balancing China’s growing outreach with the Indo-Pacific region while concurrently affirming bilateralism with Beijing explains India’s strategic autonomy and pluralism in its foreign policy. This does not suggest India is engaging in a China-containment strategy, but rather denotes New Delhi’s strategic outreach to position itself better in a liberal-order framework. The principal intent behind aligning with the Quad countries also lies in India’s desire to protect its maritime interests in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). The competing India-China interests in securing energy resources, protecting maritime and other national interests are bound to collide, coupled with the boundary dispute. India’s pluralistic foreign policy under Narendra Modi and Chinese leader’s Xi Jinping’s “new era” foreign policy have manifested obstructing national trajectories. However, for India, its relationship with China is most imperative, with their relationship now playing a more defining role in the Indo-Pacific construct. Likewise, India’s approach to the Quad should not be construed as an anti-China proposition.
