At a virtual Quad summit, Modi and his counterparts effectively announced that they would frustrate China’s geopolitical ambitions—by cooperating to preserve a free and open Indo-Pacific—even as they never publicly mentioned China by name.4 In the summer of 2021, India moved tens of thousands of additional troops to the border, while also studying how it might help Washington choke off China’s maritime supply lines in a war.5 U.S. officials began publicly referring to India as a keystone of their counter-China strategy.6
