Replied by Prerna Gandhi, Associate Fellow, VIF
China is the prime strategic challenge for India and will remain so in time ahead. External balancing is a key component in India's strategy in dealing with the China challenge. However, it isn't our policy to join military alliances as India wants to retain strategic autonomy and does not support bloc politics. Also our prime concern is our own border with China. India is part of the Quad security grouping that involves the US, Japan and Australia. The Quad is, however, not a mutual defense security pact like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The Quad by virtue of its flexibility brings together strategic capabilities of the four member countries in bilateral, trilateral, quadrilateral and plurilateral formats to timely address the new strategic realities that come with China's aggressive and unilateralist behaviour. Since 2020, the four countries also participate together in the Malabar naval exercises that seek to bring greater interoperability along with focus on maritime domain awareness (MDA), humanitarian assistance and disaster relief activities (HADR), etc. in the region. Under the Biden administration, the Quad has been elevated to summit level interactions that involve regular meetings between heads of government in the four countries. Along with security, Quad has also focused on economic activities such as critical and emerging technologies, infrastructure, energy, health etc. along with reshaping supply chains.