South Korea will not join QUAD and has actually threatened to pull out of various pacts over its high tensions with Japan.
QUAD isn’t a feasible pact, when nations within it have multiple disputes with their own neighbours, who ironically want to form a front against China who bullies neighbours from their own perspective.
Like I’ve stated;
Australia too small to fight.
Japan too old to fight.
India too many to fight.
US can it really be bothered to fight.
Why must there be actual fighting? After all, NATO never had a need to fight USSR directly. It is far better to achieve national interest goals by other means, with war only as a last resort, between nuclear rivals, in international geopolitics. It bears to keep in mind that, in such alliances, individual members may be bilateral issues with other individual members, but they may still be able to come together for certain united goals quite effectively.
And also does Pakistan want to become/ can afford to become embroiled in this fight of the big fish. This is a difficult juncture and Pakistani help and its nature needs to be determined.
Secondly why would we only concentrate on the Navy alone when we have nearly 90 obsete air platforms, and most importantly a country in financial doldrum of a nature which will surely bankrupt us.
Lastly Naval expansion is not only platform related but also manpower related. The latter would need to be trained and this will take time effort and money. In the context of impending disaster how would that be rlevant? I suspect we will need at least a decade to rain the staff to man the platforms/we already have ordered so how will we manage to get the rest of the staff?
So yes QUAD is an existential threat for Pakistan as well. However we need to ensure that we do not get embroiled in another war not of our own making and if we do, we get enough out of it to matter to us. The immediate need would be economic as these pressures will cripple us long before any war. Military hardware may be a secondary need. However we need another alliance to counter this one. Whether China can convince Russia to join in or not remains to be seen. The other potential allies could be Turkey and Iran. The repurcussions of Iran joining in will cause the whole middle East into turmoil and we need to study this very carefully. We also need to look at what Iran will actually bring to the fray and whether its inclusion will be productive or counter productive.
A
The demands on Pakistan's meager resources are many, and as you point out, the Navy may not be at or even near the top. I would even dare say that other issues related to non military demands on scarce economic resources will rise to the very top in a short few years by compulsion, and by then it would be too late to resolve them effectively. (Perhaps it already is.)
I would also point out that QUAD does not pose an existential threat to Pakistan, nor is it intended to become that ever. I have stated this in the past, and will state it again: both China and USA will continue to work together to prevent a total meltdown (no pun intended) in Pakistan, since its real existential threats all arise from within. A slow managed implosion over a few decades would perhaps be the most likely outcome, if it ever comes to that. Nobody wants to deal with a disintegrating nuclear mess spilling over its boundaries with the misdirected fury of hundreds of millions of impoverished ignorant lost souls.
You are right that Pakistan needs to choose its next steps carefully. However, they are not really the ones you mention. Whether Pakistan "chooses" to side with China or USA, or whether Iran or Saudi Arabia will jump into the fray and on which side, are, at best side issues. Let me be blunt: Pakistan needs to gets its house in order, starting with governance and ending with long term investments in social development. Equally bluntly, it remains unable and unwilling to do either in any effective or sustained manner, and thus remains at grave risk, much of it of its own making, although blaming others is a favorite past time.
As you said elsewhere, the above remain my views and of course you are equally free to disagree with them.
You have to start. You can't let the gap between Pakistani Navy and India more then 3 times. We can't allow Indian Navy to be 4 or 5 or 6 times bigger then us.
Noble words indeed. What Pakistan can and cannot "let" happen, or what it thinks it can "allow" the size of India's Navy, will all be determined by what resources it has available to throw at its issues, both monetary and non-monetary. Both are pretty inadequate to deal with its real challenges, which remain non military.
