Australia rules out Quad summit without Biden
Albanese said a Quad summit would not proceed in Sydney next week without US President, who postponed his trip because of debt ceiling negotiations in Washington
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Wednesday a Quad summit would not proceed in Sydney next week without US President Joe Biden, who postponed his trip because of debt ceiling negotiations in Washington.
Albanese said the leaders of Australia, the United States, India and Japan would instead meet at the G7 in Japan this weekend, ater Biden cancelled a trip to Sydney on the second leg of his upcoming Asia trip, which was also to have included a visit to Papua New Guinea.
“The Quad leaders meeting will not be going ahead in Sydney next week. We, though will be having that discussion between Quad leaders in Japan,” Albanese told a news conference.
A visit to Sydney by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will still go ahead next week, Albanese said in an interview on local radio, including a rally at an indoor stadium in the west of the city.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida pulled out of his trip ater Biden’s cancellation, Albanese added.
The Quad is an informal group that promotes an open Indo-pacific. Beijing sees it as an atempt to push back against its growing influence in the region.
Asia Society Policy Institute senior fellow Richard Maude said the cancellation of Biden’s visit to Papua New Guinea, which would have been the first visit by an American president to an independent Pacific islands nation, could set back Washington’s batle for influence with Beijing in the region.
“The mantra in the region is all about turning up. Turning up is half the batle. China turns up all the time, and so the optics aren’t great,” Maude, a former Australian intelligence chief, told a panel discussion on the Quad on Wednesday.
India and Australia are not part of the G7 group of seven rich nations.
Biden and opposition Republican leaders on Tuesday offered hope of a deal that could avoid a catastrophic US debt default, although the president was forced to shorten an upcoming Asia-pacific tour for further crisis talks.
Ater the latest negotiations ended without a breakthrough, Republican House speaker Kevin Mccarthy told reporters there was still “a lot of work to do” to break the high-stakes standoff with Democrat Biden over the borrowing limit.
But while stark differences remained, the White House said Biden was “optimistic that there is a path to a responsible, bipartisan budget agreement if both sides negotiate in good faith.”
And Mccarthy likewise indicated he ultimately expected a deal, even if so far “nothing has been resolved.”
“America is the number one economy in the world. And when we get done with these negotiations, America’s economy is going to be stronger,” he said.
Steven Ranewa, a lawyer in the capital, Port Moresby, said Biden’s planned visit had been very big news across the Pacific, and he planned to watch the motorcades from the street.
“Everyone was excited,” he said. “But now that it’s been canceled, it’s really demoralising.”
Konio Anu, who manages a lodge in the capital, said she was saddened by the news, and wondered if people would still get the day off on Monday.
She said she was waiting to see if one international guest who booked for Monday would cancel. Some other leaders had their doubts as well. New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins deliberated most of the day before announcing that he would still go ahead with his trip to Papua New Guinea.
Anna Powles, a senior lecturer in international security at New Zealand’s Massey University, said that although Pacific leaders would understand that Biden was needed at home, the cancellation demonstrated how domestic US politics can undermine the nation’s foreign policy agenda.
“Unfortunately, it speaks to a patern of behaviour that causes many in the region to regard the US as a less-than-reliable partner,” Powles said.
She said the meeting had been framed as a sequel to a summit held with Pacific leaders in Washington last year, and was supposed to represent a deepening of the relationship between the US and the Pacific at a time when China is increasingly exerting its influence in the region.