US President Joe Biden and the leaders of Australia, India and Japan promised on Friday to work together for a stable, open and democratic Indo-Pacific in a veiled dig at China during their first in-person summit together.
In Biden’s latest effort to cement US leadership in the face of a rising China, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) agreed to move ahead on a joint plan to provide COVID-19 vaccines across Asia, launched a new climate initiative and said the four nations would begin holding annual summits.
Without any explicit mention of China, the leaders of the four democracies in a joint statement said they were committed to “promoting the free, open, rules-based order, rooted in international law and undaunted by coercion.”
Photo: EPA-EFE
“We stand for the rule of law, freedom of navigation and overflight, peaceful resolution of disputes, democratic values and territorial integrity of states,” the statement said.
“Free and open” has become code for expressing worry about swelling Chinese economic, diplomatic and military presence — including threats to vital international sea lanes.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, speaking as the talks opened, said that the four “liberal democracies” were working to build a “strong, stable and prosperous region.”
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said the summit showed the four nations’ “common vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific,” while Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi — whose own track record on minority rights has been controversial at home — hailed the Quad’s “shared democratic values.”
While the leaders carefully avoided public mention of China, Suga voiced “strong concern” during the talks about Beijing’s assertiveness at sea, its trampling of Hong Kong’s special status and its mass incarceration of the Uighur minority, Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Tomoyuki Yoshida said.
Biden, who often talks about democracies needing to prove their capability in an age of powerful autocracies in Russia and China, sought to show that the Quad was about action.
“We’re four major democracies with a long history of cooperation. We know how to get things done and we are up to the challenge,” he said.
India said it would export 8 million one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccines by the end of next month.
During virtual talks in March, the Quad leaders said they would supply more than 1 billion vaccines by the end of next year, with India providing production, Japan and the US financing and Australia the logistics.
On another key priority for Biden, the Quad leaders said the four nations would all make “ambitious” announcements at the upcoming Glasgow climate summit with an aim of bringing the warming planet to net-zero emissions by 2050.
US officials said they did not see the Quad as a military alliance even as they sought to broaden cooperation.
MAKING WAVES: China’s maritime militia could become a nontraditional threat in war, clogging up shipping lanes to prevent US or Japanese intervention, a report said About 1,900 Chinese ships flying flags of convenience and fishing vessels that participated in China’s military exercises around Taiwan last month and in January have been listed for monitoring, Coast Guard Administration (CGA) Deputy Director-General Hsieh Ching-chin (謝慶欽) said yesterday. Following amendments to the Commercial Port Act (商港法) and the Law of Ships (船舶法) last month, the CGA can designate possible berthing areas or deny ports of call for vessels suspected of loitering around areas where undersea cables can be accessed, Oceans Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said. The list of suspected ships, originally 300, had risen to about 1,900 as
Right-wing political scientist Laura Fernandez on Sunday won Costa Rica’s presidential election by a landslide, after promising to crack down on rising violence linked to the cocaine trade. Fernandez’s nearest rival, economist Alvaro Ramos, conceded defeat as results showed the ruling party far exceeding the threshold of 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff. With 94 percent of polling stations counted, the political heir of outgoing Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves had captured 48.3 percent of the vote compared with Ramos’ 33.4 percent, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal said. As soon as the first results were announced, members of Fernandez’s Sovereign People’s Party
MORE RESPONSIBILITY: Draftees would be expected to fight alongside professional soldiers, likely requiring the transformation of some training brigades into combat units The armed forces are to start incorporating new conscripts into combined arms brigades this year to enhance combat readiness, the Executive Yuan’s latest policy report said. The new policy would affect Taiwanese men entering the military for their compulsory service, which was extended to one year under reforms by then-president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in 2022. The conscripts would be trained to operate machine guns, uncrewed aerial vehicles, anti-tank guided missile launchers and Stinger air defense systems, the report said, adding that the basic training would be lengthened to eight weeks. After basic training, conscripts would be sorted into infantry battalions that would take
GROWING AMBITIONS: The scale and tempo of the operations show that the Strait has become the core theater for China to expand its security interests, the report said Chinese military aircraft incursions around Taiwan have surged nearly 15-fold over the past five years, according to a report released yesterday by the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Department of China Affairs. Sorties in the Taiwan Strait were previously irregular, totaling 380 in 2020, but have since evolved into routine operations, the report showed. “This demonstrates that the Taiwan Strait has become both the starting point and testing ground for Beijing’s expansionist ambitions,” it said. Driven by military expansionism, China is systematically pursuing actions aimed at altering the regional “status quo,” the department said, adding that Taiwan represents the most critical link in China’s
RSS