President Joe Biden attended on Friday the first summit of leaders of the informal international alliance known as the “Quad”, while his government is stepping up efforts to deal with China’s growing influence.
The group, which also included India, Japan and Australia, met virtually due to coronavirus restrictions.
Biden started the summit by emphasizing the need for a “free and open” Indo-Pacific region.
“The United States is committed to working with you, our partners and all of our allies in the region, to achieve stability,” he said.
In a joint statement after the meeting, the four leaders reaffirmed their commitment to cooperating with Covid-19, security challenges and climate change.
“Today, we are committed to responding to the economic and health impacts of COVID-19, combating climate change and addressing shared challenges, including in cyberspace, critical technologies, counterterrorism, investment in quality infrastructure and humanitarian assistance and relief in disasters as well as maritime domains, “they said.
The leaders also reaffirmed their commitment to the denuclearization of North Korea and agreed that their countries would establish a “working group of vaccine experts” to assist in the distribution of Covid-19, among other things.
The four counties pledged Friday to deliver up to 1 billion doses of the Covid-19 vaccine to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and Indo-Pacific countries by the end of 2022 using Indian manufacturing, US and Japanese funding and Australian, national logistics security consultant Jake Sullivan told reporters at a meeting at the White House.
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Each country has also endeavored to make it clear that it is not an anti-Beijing club.
“It was established not to contain a single threat or to focus on a single issue,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters on Thursday, but “to show what democracies can offer together, both for our populations and the world in general. “
Despite these protests, the alliance is widely seen as an effort to combat Beijing’s growing military and economic power.
“It is a group of countries concerned with China and everyone trying to keep the line on an open and democratic path for non-Chinese,” Chinese author and analyst Bill Hayton told NBC News.
However, he added, the “Quad” is not a formal alliance in the same way as NATO and therefore has no strict duty to defend one another.
Representatives of the four members of the “Quadrilateral Security Dialogue” met sporadically after it was formally established in 2007.
But the group was revived by former President Donald Trump, whose secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, attended meetings while Washington sought to reinvigorate the alliance amid escalating tensions with Beijing.
Relations between the two largest economies in the world have deteriorated with trade clashes, Covid-19, the autonomy of Hong Kong, Taiwan and alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang.
In a sign that the Biden government will continue to take a tough stance, Secretary of State Antony Blinken called China “the greatest geopolitical test of the 21st century”.
However, it is not just the United States that is at odds with China.
India, Australia and Japan faced their own security challenges, strengthening their interest in the four-nation alliance.
Japan has long-standing complaints about contested islands and maritime claims, while Indian and Chinese troops were involved in deadly border clashes over disputed territory in the Himalayas last year.
Australia has faced commercial pressure from Beijing and Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Friday that the “Quad” meeting was “a historic moment” and an opportunity to “create a new anchor for peace and stability in Indo- Pacific”.
The revitalization of the group also gained momentum last year after India invited Australia to participate in naval exercises with it, the United States and Japan.
For the group to offer an effective counterattack to an increasingly assertive Beijing, said Chinese analyst Hayton, the Biden government must try to offer more than just security. Instead, it must seek to match the “full spectrum involvement” that China offers to countries in the region, such as aid and vaccines, which were “totally non-existent in the Trump period,” he added.
To that end, leaders are expected to announce a plan to increase the manufacturing capabilities of India’s coronavirus vaccine, which arises at a time when China continues to follow its own so-called vaccine diplomacy policy around the world. .
“The idea that you can somehow contain China is just ridiculous, but I think it’s a way of trying to make sure that China doesn’t set the agenda entirely,” added Hayton.
Unsurprisingly, Beijing is not a fan of the alliance.
Chinese officials did not comment directly at Friday’s meeting, but have already denounced the group and warned against “exclusive cliques”.
“For Beijing, all of this is bad news,” said Michael Shoebridge, director of defense, strategy and national security at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a research institute.
“The Quad’s agenda … is exactly the kind of multilateral cooperation that Beijing fears and finds difficult to orchestrate.”
The virtual summit takes place amid a US diplomatic flood in Asia.
Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will visit Japan and South Korea next week in an effort to solidify important alliances. And Japan’s Prime Minister, Yoshihide Suga, will travel to the United States to meet Biden in April.
Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan will also meet with top Chinese officials next week in Alaska, the first high-level personal contact between the two countries since Biden took office.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told the press on Thursday that Beijing hoped Washington would put relations back on a “healthy and stable” path.
He said China is asking the United States to “reject the Cold War and the zero-sum game mentality, respect China’s sovereignty, security and development interests and stop interfering in China’s internal affairs.”