Opinion | Quad’s Indo-Pacific maritime initiative raises more questions than answers

Although the maritime partnership is being presented primarily as a tracking system to curb China’s illegal fishing, it can easily be applied to other activities, including intelligence gathering

Is the initiative’s purpose to protect fisheries or could it be a Trojan horse for the Quad’s militaries?

Reading Time:4 minutes

Published: 1:30am, 8 Jun 2022Updated: 2:52am, 8 Jun 2022

At a meeting in Tokyo last month, leaders of the US, India, Australia and Japan – the Quad – launched their Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness. While hailed by its backers as a step forward in practical Quad cooperation, it raises many questions. Judgement about its effectiveness should be withheld until they are answered.

First, it is not clear what exactly the initiative entails. A White House fact sheet explained that it “will offer a near-real-time, integrated, and cost-effective maritime domain awareness picture”. A Financial Times report quoted an unnamed US official as saying the initiative planned to fund a commercial satellite-tracking service to provide maritime intelligence that would be shared with Indo-Pacific nations.

That data will be provided to a network of surveillance centres in India, Singapore, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands. These centres will integrate the data with that from other sources, such as maritime reconnaissance aircraft and vessels, and share it through their networks.

But what is the initiative’s geographic focus? According to the fact sheet, it will “transform the ability of partners in the Pacific Islands, Southeast Asia, and the Indian Ocean region to fully monitor the waters on their shores and, in turn, to uphold a free and open Indo-Pacific”.

Does “on their shores” mean within their 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone? Does it include disputed areas? It apparently does not include the Yellow, East China and Japan seas. If that’s the case, why not?

What is its primary purpose? The Quad leaders’ statement says the initiative is “designed to work with regional partners to respond to humanitarian and natural disasters, and combat illegal fishing”. But the fact sheet says that “it will allow tracking of ‘dark shipping’ and other tactical-level activities, such as rendezvous at sea, as well as [emphasis added] improve partners’ ability to protect their fisheries”.

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