Never mind that the Quad partners have their differences. The meeting of their foreign ministers in Washington on 1 July should be an occasion for the grouping of Australia, India, Japan and the United States to step up.

With a clear eye on China, the Quad should reiterate its commitment to principles-based foreign policy, not the surrender of long-term interests for short-term economic gain. And, overthrowing its unwise definition of itself as unrelated to security, it should begin edging into the realm of defence.

The meeting will be the first of Quad foreign ministers since they gathered in January in the margins of President Donald Trump’s inauguration. His first term witnessed the regeneration of the Quad, including the first ever foreign ministers’ meeting in 2019. Australia, Japan and India strengthened their relations with the US in a way European and other nations envied. But in Trump’s second term, some are suggesting that the Quad is no longer so influential. They particularly note the president’s imposition of tariffs on imports from all countries.

Indeed, China no longer talks much about the Quad, which it once strenuously criticised. It seems to have chosen to let it flounder rather than stick with its false claims of it being some kind of Asian NATO.

After all, the Quad countries are not necessarily aligned on all current issues.

The White House and Pentagon have made it clear that the US’s Indo-Pacific partners should, like Europe, increase defence spending. Will the Quad foreign ministers discuss defence spending or leave that for defence ministers and national leaders to talk about another day? Marco Rubio may insist on talking about it: he’s national security advisor as well as secretary of state.

Will we see any tension on Middle East policy, adding to the Quad’s existing misalignment on Russia? Will Australia’s reported seeking of legal advice about the US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities be discussed? Will India seek to limit the Quad’s scope to the Indo-Pacific and therefore focus on China? If so, will that challenge Canberra’s policy of stabilising relations with Beijing? And will the foreign ministers, like Quad leaders did in 2024, try to claim that the group is mainly a forum for positive capacity building and economic growth? (Former president Joe Biden rather weakened that claim when, not knowing a microphone was turned on, told the other leaders that Beijing was acting ‘aggressively, testing us all across the region, and it’s true in the South China Sea, the East China Sea, South Asia and the Taiwan straits.’)

Other subjects of disagreement could be relations with Russia and Iran, India being friendlier than other members with both. Tariffs are an undoubted matter of contention. And we’re halfway through a review of AUKUS by the Pentagon that has sent anxiety through Canberra and London.

Yet we need not focus too much on these points of disagreement. All relationships have their ups and downs. What’s more important is that the four Quad members share a collective commitment to prosperity, freedom and security.

We must reject calls for democracies to both shelve the values that make us better than authoritarian regimes and take on an interests-based approach to relations with the authoritarians. A so-called interest-based foreign policy always means prioritising short-term economic gain. Far more important is backing the principle of rules, in which the international rules-based order is both agreed and enforced.

In applying principles, Quad members have a dual role—to come together to constrain Beijing from breaching agreed rules, and to give the smaller economies of the region the confidence that Quad countries will be there to deter and respond to any interference in their sovereignty.

So, just as the US’s NATO partners have obtained US recommitment to that alliance, an objective of this Quad meeting should be a US reiteration that the Indo-Pacific is its most important region. This would enable a Quad commitment that Beijing will not be allowed to run roughshod over the rules-based order.

This would also mean the Quad going even further than it has in the past by publicly supporting the Philippines and reiterating support for Taiwan’s status quo and Japan’s interests in the East China Sea.

This Quad meeting should be up front that the group’s role includes constraining Beijing’s worst behaviour and competing with China’s pursuit of technological superiority. If European countries can say that China is an economic partner but also a strategic rival, the Quad can be just as clear.

None of this should displace the Quad’s commitments to regional economic prosperity. Indeed, it would reinforce those commitments: security of these oceans and nations underpins investment.

The Quad must not repeat the mistake of presenting itself as unrelated to security. If there is one area of security that the members should work on, it’s maritime. They should agree that they need to cooperate in maritime security to keep an eye on China’s growing naval power and that none can do this alone. Coordinating their maritime surface and sub-surface surveillance is becoming vital.

The Quad should go further by acknowledging that maintaining the rules requires defence capability. This means there’s a need to start talking about defence at the Quad, including lessons learned from the various wars over the past few years, such as the need to ramp up defence supplies. In defence, the partners can gain through cooperation.

These conversations need to begin before a regional crisis erupts. Ignore the nervous and the naysayers. They rejected the entire notion of the Quad until it was resurrected in 2017.

So the Quad should schedule a meeting of partners’ defence ministers before the national leaders meet in Delhi this year.