"A recent article in The Financial Times suggested that the second wave has exposed India as the weakest link in the Quad grouping of the US, Japan. Australia, and India, whose collective goal is to counter Chinese influence in the Indo-Pacific," wrote Prof Rohan Mukherjee. "Specifically the article argued that India's emergency export ban on vaccines has alienated neighbouring countries and undermined the Quad's effort to compete with China's vaccine diplomacy," Times of India (TOI). "The Quad's recent resurgence -- after and abortive start in 2007 -- has been driven by uneasiness about the rise of China and the security threat it poses to the international order," wrote SN Kutty and R Basrur. "Commentators iften cast it as an 'alliance' in the making, perhaps and 'Asian NATO'. It is not. Rather, the Quad is designed as a loose-knit network of like-minded partners aiming at a broader purpose," The Diplomat. "China's relations with each of the Quad members have become more tense during the pandemic," Council on Foreign Relations. "Yet, few policymakers in the Quad countries see an advantage in trying to contain Chinese influence militarily." In May, the Chinese Ambassador to Bangladesh, Li Jiming, warned Dhaka against closer relations with the Quad as part of Beijing's new aggressive foreign policy, C Raja Mohan. Shortage of vaccines or the lack of healthcare will not matter so much to India's image in the long run, wrote Mukherjee. What will matter is India's "broader ability to generate and project military power, and this is what counts when it comes to India's foreign relations and the Quad in particular". However, military power depends on the economy and that is where China is winning over India. "Every time Sri Lanka's president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, turned to his Chinese allies for loans and assistance with an ambitious port project, the answer was yes," New York Times. "Under heavy pressure and after months of negotiations with the Chinese, the government handed over the port and 15,000 acres of land around it for 99 year in December." This was in 2017. Sri Lanka realised the dangers of handing over its territory to China when, "Earlier last month, a cargo ship carrying chemicals caught fire off the coast of Sri Lanka -- leaving in its wake an environmental disaster that the island will likely have to live with for decades," BBC. The danger of Chinese ownership of the port became evident when the Chinese owners of the vessel would not let Sri Lankan divers from attending to the ship, Economic Times (ET). It is not just China that India has to tackle as in the sudden barbaric attack on Indian soldiers at Galwan Valley in Ladakh, one year back, BBC. An article in the Russian news agency TASS claimed that, along with 20 Indian soldiers, at least 45 Chinese soldiers were also killed, The Print. Having secured the port in Sri Lanka which China can use as a naval base, China confirmed its commitment to "Iron Brother" Pakistan in talks between the two foreign ministers in August 2020, Dawn. Journalist Rahul Pandita has written a book "The Lover Boy of Bhawalpur" in which he narrates how Indian forces tracked down masterminds of the attack on the Indian Parliament in 2001 by 5 heavily armed terrorists, wikipedia, and the Pulwama attack in which 40 Indian troops were killed in a suicide attack in 2019, wikipedia. In the case of Umar Farooq the police recovered two phones "an iPhone and a Samsung S-9 plus" but they thought the phones were too damaged to be of any use However, they were persuaded to send the phones to the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In who were able to recover 50 GB of data from the phones, TOI. In the case of the Parliament mastermind Rana Tahir Nadeem, also known as Ghazi Baba, one soldier died and at least 2 were injured when the terrorist was cornered in a room with no escape, TOI. India is surviving on the sacrifice of our soldiers. Their lives depend on intelligence and weapons, which depend on the economy, which is down due to the pandemic, Business Today. Because no one took it seriously. They don't care.
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