Known formally as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, the Quad is a group of procedural democracies comprising the USA, Japan, India, and Australia. It is not an alliance but rather a loose formation that first came together in 2004 following the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami.

Commitment to the grouping wavered until interests of Quad members converged over China’s bellicosity and the relative decline of American hegemony. The Quad’s expanding agenda of cooperation includes security, health and economic issues. It’s a complicated relationship – all four countries experience different geostrategic circumstances, regional dynamics and national interests. But, as the American scholar Kori Schake writes, future commentators may call this period of history “the interwar years” unless the West (and like-minded others) can mobilise to meet their challenges – and unless China and the US succeed in managing their strategic competition. In that context, the Quad matters, as a “mini-lateral” group in a multi-polar world.

Dr Geoff Heriot is a former corporate executive with the ABC, a foreign correspondent in South Asia and PNG/Pacific, and a consultant on media and governance internationally. Senior ABC appointments included Chief of Corporate Planning and Governance, General Manager of Corporate Strategy, and Controller of News and Programs at Radio Australia, the ABC’s multilingual international service. Between 1994 and 1996, Geoff served as adviser to the post-Apartheid board and chief executive of the South African Broadcasting Corporation. He has undertaken consultancies in North and Southeast Asia, PNG and the Pacific and the Arabian Gulf. For six years, he chaired the Screen Tasmania Advisory Board. He is also the immediate past chair and continuing board member of Island Magazine Inc. 

This is a recording of an event held by AIIA Tasmania on 27 October 2021. To register for upcoming events, CLICK HERE.