Opinion | South Korea is showing up India’s ill fit as a US ally and Quad member

When Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol met in Tokyo earlier this month, celebrations echoed in Washington.

While both countries are treaty allies of the United States, they have been at odds with each other over complaints dating back to World War II. But in the run-up to the summit, South Korea said it would no longer demand that Japanese companies compensate the Korean victims of forced labour.

The shift is largely driven by threats from China and North Korea, and the US stands to gain enormously. Cooperation between Japan and South Korea will greatly improve Washington’s security posture and its ability to counterbalance China. South Korea has also been moving steadily towards the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue and there is growing discussion over whether it would formally join the grouping.

But that suggestion could unsettle a different US ally: India. For years, India has dragged its feet in the Quad, stonewalling efforts to define it as a security coalition aimed at China. With the recent Aukus deal, under which the US and Britain joined hands to supply Australia with nuclear-powered submarines, there was a sense that Washington was expanding its options in the region to sidestep the Quad’s inadequacies in the security space.

Inducting South Korea into the Quad could directly increase pressure on India, given Seoul’s stronger military ties with the US and its closer alignment in stance with the West on Russia and Ukraine.

Indeed, with Japan and South Korea finding more common ground, India increasingly looks like a misfit within the US alliance system.