The Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) is delighted to invite you to a seminar titled “Quad Maritime Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific: What Next?” on Thursday, January 8, 2026, from 4:00 to 5:30 pm (IST) at the CSEP Auditorium, 6, Dr Jose P Rizal Marg, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi – 110021.

The seminar will begin with a presentation by Riya Sinha, Former Associate Fellow, CSEP. This will be followed by a discussion with H.E. Philip Green, High Commissioner, High Commission of Australia, Amy Schedlbauer, Minister Counselor for Economic Affairs, Embassy of the United States, Saswati Dey, Director of Americas, Ministry of External Affairs and Kenji Matsuno, Counsellor, Economic Affairs, Embassy of Japan. The session will be moderated by Constantino Xavier, Senior Fellow, CSEP.

Please note that this is an in-person event only. If you are in Delhi on the day, please join us for the seminar. The event will be available on the CSEP website and YouTube channel upon completion.

Register here to attend

About the event

At the July Quad Foreign Ministers’ meeting, the joint statement outlined cooperation on maritime issues. While a Quad summit may now be held next year, there are clear indications that the member countries are willing to move forward at a “working level.” The recent India Maritime Week, as part of the Quad Ports of the Future initiative led by India, exemplifies this. Recently, Australia, Japan, India, and the US also coordinated in the annual Malabar exercise, separate from the Quad but reinforcing maritime strategic alignment. Across various diplomatic engagements over the past few months, all four members have reiterated their commitment to a Free and Open Indo-Pacific. Together, these developments suggest that Quad maritime cooperation is deepening: from joint naval drills and coast guard missions to a more coordinated approach to port-related investments.

In a recent CSEP paper, India and the Quad in Port Development in the Bay of Bengal Region, author Riya Sinha argues that if the Quad wants to matter in the Indian Ocean Region, it must start getting serious about ports. This raises broader questions: Is a port-focused strategy the logical next step for the Quad? And can working-level cooperation continue to deliver results even as high-level summits face delays? This paper launch and discussion will focus on these questions and consider what the next phase of coordination might look like in the Indo-Pacific region.

Presenter

Riya Sinha

Riya Sinha is a PhD scholar at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University.

Prior to this, she was an Associate Fellow in the Foreign Policy and Security vertical at CSEP. She was the 2024 Maitri Fellow at the United States Studies Centre, supported by the Centre for Australia India Relations. In 2022, she was a Visiting Fellow at the Stimson Centre in Washington DC. Her research interest includes regional economic connectivity in South Asia, particularly in the area of trade, logistics, infrastructure, and border management. Prior to joining CSEP, Riya was a researcher at the Bureau of Research on Industry and Economic Fundamentals (BRIEF), where she conducted research on regional supply chains, Cross-Line of Control Trade in Jammu and Kashmir and steered time-release studies across various sea ports for ease of doing business (trading across borders) in India.

Discussants

High Commissioner Philip Green 

High Commissioner Philip Green is an Australian diplomat with experience on four continents, having served as Ambassador or High Commissioner to Germany, Singapore, South Africa and Kenya.

High Commissioner Green’s career includes the following highlights:

• Oversight of the implementation of Australia’s Indo-Pacific Strategy following its launch in 2017;
• Lead responsibility for the development of Australia’s policy on the Quad from 2017 to 2019;
• Piloting the conclusion of the Enhanced Strategic Partnership with Germany and the Australia-Germany Hydrogen Accord (2021).
• The conclusion of Australia’s Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with Singapore in 2016, and the upgrade to the Australia-Singapore Free Trade Agreement of the same year.

Mr Green was Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s International Adviser (2009-2010), and Chief of Staff to Foreign Minister Rudd (2010-2012).

He led the Secretariat for the Review of Australian Intelligence Agencies 2004.

Mr Green was awarded the Order of Australia Medal for his role in the response to the Bali terrorist tragedy in 2002.

He is a graduate of the University of Sydney in Arts (First Class Honours) and Law. He holds honorary degrees from James Cook University and Murdoch University.

High Commissioner Green is married to Professor Susan Marks who is a Professor of International Law at the London School of Economics and is a Fellow of the British Academy.

Amy Schedlbauer

Amy Schedlbauer, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, is the Minister Counselor for Economic Affairs at U.S. Embassy New Delhi. She came from U.S. Embassy Paris where she served as the Minister Counselor for Economic, Environment, Science, Technology, and Health Affairs. Ms. Schedlbauer has served in Washington three times, most recently leading the team in the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM) providing humanitarian assistance to Asia and the Middle East. She also led the regional and multilateral affairs office in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs (NEA). She has served as deputy chief of mission in Algiers, led the energy team at the U.S. Mission in Iraq, and was the deputy director during the Arab Spring of the office covering the bilateral relationship with Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt. Ms. Schedlbauer’s previous assignments include the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in New York, the U.S. Consulate General in Jerusalem, the Jordan and Lebanon desks at the State Department, staff assistant to the Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs, and assignments at U.S. Embassies Kuwait and Port Louis. She earned her undergraduate degree at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and a master’s in public policy at Princeton University. She is the proud adoptive mother of two children.

Saswati Dey

Saswati Dey belongs to the 2010 batch of the Indian Foreign Service. Her first assignment was as Third Secretary in the Embassy of India, Paris, from September 2012 to January 2014. During this period, she also learnt French language at the Institute Catholique de Paris and Sorbonne University in Paris. Her next posting was as Under Secretary (Finance) in the Ministry of External Affairs, Delhi from January 2014 to November 2016. On her next assignment she served as First Secretary and Head of the Political unit in the Embassy of India, Moscow, from November 2016 to May 2020. She has served as Counsellor (Political and Public Diplomacy) in High Commission of India, Singapore from 2020- 2023. She has been serving in Delhi in the Ministry of External Affairs after her return from Singapore in mid 2023. She was Director Oceania looking after Australia and the Pacific Island Countries from mid 2023 to 2024. Since July 2024 she has been serving as Director Americas (USA and Canada).  Saswati did her post graduation in Geography from Delhi School of Economics from 2004-06. She was born in West Bengal while she grew up in Odisha. She likes travelling, driving, music, photography, cooking and adventure sports.

Kenji Matsuno
Counsellor, Economic Affairs, Embassy of Japan

Moderator

Constantino Xavier

Constantino Xavier is a Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy and Security Studies at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) in New Delhi. At CSEP he leads the Sambandh Initiative on regional connectivity. He is also a non-resident fellow in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution, in Washington DC.

His research expertise is on India’s role as a regional power and the intersecting dimensions of security, connectivity and democracy across South Asia and the Indian Ocean. He also works on India’s relations with the European Union and other democratic powers in the Indo-Pacific, and has published widely in academic books and journals on India’s foreign and security policies with a focus on state capacity, regional institutions, economic and infrastructure diplomacy and soft power. He is writing a book on India’s democratic realism and involvement in the neighbourhood since the 1950s, based on declassified records and interviews with decision-makers in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Myanmar.

He regularly teaches, lectures and supervises research on foreign policy and strategic affairs at international universities and also at India’s diplomatic, administrative and military training institutions, including the Sushma Swaraj Institute of Foreign Service Institute, the Naval War College and the National Defence College. He has held fellowships at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses and at the Observer Research Foundation, in New Delhi, and previously worked at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Brookings Institution. He received research grants from the United States Fulbright program and the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), Ministry of External Affairs, of which he is a Distinguished Alumni awardee.

Dr Xavier holds a Ph.D. in South Asian studies from the Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies, an M.Phil. and M.A. in International Politics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, and a B.A. with undergraduate studies at Nova University Lisbon and Sciences Po Paris.

All content reflects the individual views of the speakers. The Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) does not hold an institutional view on any subject.

Please contact Gurmeet Kaur at GKaur@csep.org for general queries and Ayesha Manocha at AManocha@csep.org for media queries.