Quad nations reaffirm support for Indo-Pacific
MELBOURNE: The Quad has worked well as a force for global good due to the strong bilateral relations between India, the US, Australia and Japan, external affairs minister S Jaishankar said on Friday, as foreign ministers from the four nations pledged to deepen cooperation to ensure the Indo-Pacific region was free from “coercion”.
Jaishankar spoke briefly when he along with the ministers from the four nations called on Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison on the sidelines of the 4th Quad Foreign Ministers’ meeting.
“It is very appropriate that it should happen, Quad meetings and … we have bilaterals tomorrow also,” Jaishankar, who is visiting Australia on his first trip to the country as external affairs minister, said.
Recalling the Quad summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi, US President Joe Biden, the then Prime Minister of Japan Yoshihide Suga and Morrison in September last year, Jaishankar said “it (the summit) gave us guidance for the Quad to put forward and I would want to assure you that, you are very good at work and, today the meeting gives us opportunity to review, how much we have progressed on this set up…”
“I do want to recognise how much progress we have made in our ties/relationships. We have a trade minister in India and as far as my knowledge is concerned the discussions there have been very positive,” he informed Morrison.
“I think Quad has worked so well as a force as my prime minister says ‘force for global good’ because of our bilateral relations have been very strong and surely why I expect the progress in our bilateral relations among the Quad as well,” he said.
On Saturday, Jaishankar will co-chair with his Australian counterpart Marise Payne the 12th India-Australia foreign ministers’ framework dialogue.
The four nations, meeting in the Australian city of Melbourne, also promised to increase cooperation on Covid-19, cyber threats and counter-terrorism.
In a joint statement, they vowed to work on humanitarian relief, disaster assistance and the delivery of infrastructure to the region, and condemned North Korea’s “destabilising ballistic missile launches” in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.
They said their informal Quad grouping was determined to deepen engagement with regional partners, and increase their capacity to combat unregulated and illegal fishing.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken travels onwards to Fiji on Saturday to meet with Pacific island leaders to whom fishing and climate change are likely to be priority issues.
“We agreed to boost maritime security support for Indo Pacific partners to strengthen their maritime domain awareness and ability to develop their offshore resources, to ensure freedom of navigation and overflight and to combat challenges such as illegal fishing,” Australian
Foreign Minister Marise Payne said after the meeting.
The Quad partners “oppose coercive economic policies” that run counter to the World Trade Organization system, “and will work collectively to foster global economic resilience against such actions”, the statement said, a reference to China’s recent trade boycotts of Australia and Lithuania.
Blinken arrived in Australia this week as Washington grapples with a dangerous standoff with Moscow, which has massed some 100,000 troops near Ukraine’s border and stoked Western fears of an invasion. Russia denies it has such plans.
The Biden administration wants to show the world its longterm strategic focus remains in the Asia-Pacific and that a major foreign policy crisis in one part of the world does not distract it from key priorities.
Asked by reporters on Friday whether confrontation with China in the Indo-Pacific was inevitable, Blinken replied that “nothing is inevitable”. “Having said that, I think we share concerns that in recent years China has been acting more aggressively at home and more aggressively in the region,” he said.
China has denounced the Quad as a Cold War construct and a clique “targeting other countries”. Payne said earlier on Friday the Quad’s cooperation on the region’s COVID response was “most critical”, with cyber and maritime security, infrastructure, climate action and disaster relief - especially after the recent Tonga volcanic eruption also in focus.
The Quad nations have begun holding annual naval exercises across the Indo-Pacific to demonstrate interoperability, and the United States itself conducts freedom of navigation patrols in the South China Sea.
Blinken’s trip comes after China and Russia declared last week a “no limits” strategic partnership, their most detailed and assertive statement to work together - and against the United States - to build a new international order based on their own interpretations of human rights and democracy.
U.S.-Chinese relations are at their lowest point in decades with the world’s top two economies disagreeing on issues ranging from Hong Kong and Taiwan to the South China Sea and China’s treatment of ethnic Muslims.