The US, India, Japan and Australia yesterday launched a joint drive to ramp up the COVID-19 vaccine supply in Asia, mounting a challenge to China in the first-ever summit of the four democracies.
US President Joe Biden, who has vowed to reinvigorate alliances in the face of growing worries about China, was set yesterday to speak virtually for about 90 minutes with the three nations’ prime ministers.
Ahead of the talks, US officials said the so-called “Quad” nations have agreed to work together to produce up to 1 billion vaccine doses by next year, as the world seeks to turn the page on the devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Photo: AFP
The plan would see pharmaceutical hub India manufacturing the single-dose vaccine from US-based Johnson & Johnson backed by financial support from Japan, with Australia taking charge of shipments.
“What we’ve tried to put together is a broad-based approach that addresses the acute shortage of vaccines across Southeast Asia in particular,” a US official told reporters on condition of anonymity.
US officials did not immediately specify target countries, but the initiative comes as China, where the virus was first detected in late 2019, works to transform its image into that of a global healer.
China has shipped vaccines as far afield as the Dominican Republic, and provided doses to international partners such as Pakistan and Zimbabwe.
The Quad format has been growing for more than a decade, but yesterday’s talks were the first at the leaders’ level and came as all four democracies see relations with China deteriorate.
China over the past year has engaged in a deadly clash with Indian forces in the Himalayas, stepped up activity near islands administered by Japan and imposed sanctions on Australian products following a series of disputes.
The Biden administration has been careful not to link the Quad explicitly to China — a shift in rhetoric after former US president Donald Trump’s strident denunciations of Beijing.
US Department of State spokesman Ned Price said that the Quad is not focused “on any single issue.”
“We have shared interests in standing up for universal values and rights. We have shared economic interests. We have shared security interests. We have deep people-to-people ties with all of these countries,” Price said.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said that China should not be concerned by the talks.
The Quad, Morrison told reporters, is about “liberal democracies standing up for our values, coming together and ensuring that we are an anchor for peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific.”
China’s state-run Global Times newspaper criticized the Quad summit as a US plot against Beijing, saying in an opinion piece that India — which has rapidly warming relations with the US, but is not a treaty-bound ally — should have maintained a distance.
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