QUAD SUMMIT 2023

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Context

• US President, Prime Minister of Australia, Prime Minister of Japan, and Prime Minister of India met in Hiroshima for the fifth convening of the Quad Leaders’ Summit.

Highlights of Quad Leaders’ Summit

• The Quad is committed to supporting the region’s development, stability, and prosperity to benefit the people of the Indo-Pacific.
• The leaders’ ambitious efforts include major initiatives on infrastructure, maritime security, public-private partnership, climate, health, critical and emerging technologies, and space.

Infrastructure

• The leaders welcome the launch of three major infrastructure initiatives to provide training, capacity, and resources to improve ongoing and future infrastructure projects.
  • Quad Infrastructure Fellowship: The program will provide at least 1,800 scholarships, work exchanges, and other executive programs to government officials on best practices surrounding the design, delivery, and management of high-standard infrastructure projects.  
  • Quad Partnership for Cable Connectivity and Resilience: Undersea cables are a critical component of communications infrastructure and serve as the foundation for internet connectivity. It will bring together public and private sector actors to address gaps in the infrastructure and coordinate on future builds.

Investment

• Fostering investment will aid economic development in the region now and for the future.
  • Quad Investors Network (QUIN): The QUIN, a network of investors and executives across Quad countries that seeks to foster co-investment in critical technologies, was officially launched.
  • Export Credit Agencies MOC: Quad countries seek to establish a Memorandum of Cooperation (MOC) between the export credit agencies of the Quad governments aims to strengthen collaboration for the promotion of trade, financing of trade-enabling projects, economic development, and knowledge-sharing with respect to the export of goods and services.

Critical And Emerging Technology

• As technology evolves, the Quad is committed to ensuring that it is leading the innovations of the future and that the benefits of new and emerging technologies are shared throughout the region.
  • Commercial Open RAN Deployment in Palau: The Quad will partner with the Government of Palau and the Palau National Communications Corporation (PNCC) to design, implement, and operationalize the deployment of Open RAN capabilities.
  • Open RAN Security Report: The Quad welcomed a new in-depth report outlining cybersecurity considerations associated with using Open RAN as an approach to developing network architecture.
  • Advancing Innovation to Empower Nextgen Agriculture (AI-ENGAGE): Quad science agencies from the countries are identifying joint funding opportunities to encourage collaborative research between Quad partners on how to leverage the latest science and technology advances to benefit farmers.
  • Quad Technology Business and Investment Forum: The forum laid the foundation for enhanced private-public collaboration across our governments, industry, investors, academia, and civil society on critical and emerging technologies. 

Maritime

• The Quad has made significant steps in enhancing maritime domain awareness.   
  • Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA): IPMDA is now bringing cutting-edge satellite-based radio frequency (RF) data to partners around the region, enhancing their maritime domain awareness, and equipping them to better monitor their waters.

Education

• The Quad is committed to fostering future STEM innovators to build the foundations of tomorrow’s successes today.
  • Quad STEM Fellowship:
    • Announced in 2021, the Quad Fellowship sponsors 100 American, Australian, Indian, and Japanese students to study in the United States each year for graduate studies in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields.
    • Quad Fellowship is expected to expand to include educational and professional opportunities in Australia, India, and Japan.

Climate And Clean Energy

• The Quad aims to help countries mitigate the effects of climate change and strengthen their climate resilience.
  • Clean Energy Supply Chain Principles and Diversification Program: program will focus on the supply chains for solar photovoltaics (PV), hydrogen electrolyzer, and electric vehicle battery technologies.
  • Climate Information Services Initiative (CIS): commits to building capacity, cooperation, and information-sharing mechanisms for climate data in the Indo-Pacific.
  • Quad Indo-Pacific Oceans Research Alliance (QIPORA): will expand ocean research and cooperation between scientists and build science and technology pipelines to enhance the resilience of Indo-Pacific nations.

Health

• As the world continues to recover from COVID-19, the Quad recognizes the importance of strengthening health security and the Indo-Pacific’s ability to handle future health crises.
  • Quad Health Security Partnership: Launched at the 2023 Quad Leaders’ Summit, the first activities will be a package of concrete initiatives to strengthen prevention, detection, and response to outbreaks of disease with epidemic or pandemic potential. 

Technology Standards

• The Quad leaders are committed to establishing shared principles and standards for the benefit of our citizens as technologies continue to develop and evolve.
  • Joint Principles on Critical and Emerging Technology Standards
  • The Quad International Standards Cooperation Network (Q-ISCN)

Cyber

• From cybersecurity to critical infrastructure to software, the Quad is committed to advancing a secure and resilient cyber ecosystem.
  • Cyber Challenge: held for the first time this year to promote cyber awareness and empower participants across the Indo-Pacific to protect themselves online.
  • Critical Infrastructure Principles: designed to strengthen the Indo-Pacific’s defenses against cyber threats to critical infrastructure and services.
  • Software Security Principles: These joint principles help ensure that Quad governments use our purchasing power to drive the development of safer and more secure software.

Space

• Quad countries are increasing cooperation on civil and commercial activities, including improving information sharing on climate and space situational awareness data. 
  • Extreme Precipitation Events: promote the use of earth observation data and other space-based tools to monitor and respond to climate impacts and aid emerging space faring Indo-Pacific nations in accessing and using these resources.
  • Commercial Space Cooperation: Quad partners commit to strengthen cooperation on commercial space activities and will convene a commercial space business forum in 2023.
  • Space Situational Awareness: The Quad will cooperate in leveraging space situational awareness and space traffic coordination capabilities for spaceflight safety and sustainability of the outer space environment.

Background

• The forum traces its genesis to 2004, when the four countries came together to coordinate relief operations in the aftermath of the tsunami.
• Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was the first to pitch the idea for the formation of Quad in 2007.
• The planned summit of Quad leaders from the US, India, Australia, and Japan in Sydney was cancelled after US President Biden withdrew from his visit due to ongoing debt limit talks in Washington.

MUST READ ARTICLES:

https://www.iasgyan.in/daily-current-affairs/quad-46

PRACTICE QUESTION Q) All the four Quad nations share a deep interest in maintaining a stable balance of power in the Indo-pacific and preventing a regional state from becoming dominant. Discuss. (150 words)

https://zeenews.india.com/india/india-will-be-happy-to-host-quad-summit-in-2024-pm-narendra-modi-in-japan-2610865.html