Leaders of four nations meet in Manila after two-year gap
This will be the first Quad leaders’ summit since PM Modi’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Kazan in 2024 that opened the door for normalisation of Sino-Indian ties.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio has said the leaders of the grouping will meet in the Philippines While an official announcement about Quad leaders’ summit is still awaited. An opinion piece in Global Times said, “this small circle, which had been dormant for two years, has finally been dusted off and brought back from the freezer by the US administration”. “If certain countries seek to use a small-circle summit to openly demonstrate their intention to interfere in South China Sea affairs, China will inevitably oppose it resolutely,” it said. The Global Times piece also said India’s approach bears clear hallmarks of balance-of-power manoeuvring. “New Delhi is unwilling to jeopardise improving the China-India relationship by aligning with other nations’ efforts to contain China, nor is it willing to make unilateral concessions on trade tariffs and market access,” it said. The same view was expressed by a Global Times editorial that said India emphasises strategic autonomy and hopes to use multilateral cooperation to create opportunities for industrial development, rather than “simply fall in line with an economic containment strategy against China designed by other countries”.
Significantly, President Donald Trump is scheduled to travel to China from Manila for the Apec summit. India sees Quad as an initiative based on democratic values and respect for rule of law that is working towards a free, inclusive and prosperous Indo-Pacific region.