Leaders of Australia, India, Japan and the US were yesterday to announce plans for new security initiatives in the Indian Ocean, as outgoing US President Joe Biden hosts counterparts from the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) he has pushed as a counterweight to China.
Biden on Friday met with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at his home near Wilmington, Delaware, where the two discussed bilateral cooperation across defense and security, including in the Indo-Pacific region, Albanese’s office said in a statement yesterday.
The US president was yesterday to welcome Albanese, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida for a four-way discussion to stress the importance of maintaining the Quad, which he sees as a signature foreign policy achievement, before he leaves office early next year.
Photo: Reuters
Senior Biden administration officials told reporters that the leaders would announce plans to expand an Indo-Pacific partnership for maritime domain awareness initiative launched two years ago to include the Indian Ocean region.
The leaders would also announce a plan for joint coast guard operations that would see Australian, Japanese and Indian personnel spend time on a US Coast Guard vessel, and plans for increased military logistics cooperation, the officials said.
They said the leaders would step up work to provide critical and security technologies, including a new open radio access network, to the Pacific islands and Southeast Asia, regions of intense competition with China, Washington’s main strategic competitor.
Analysts said the expected outcomes would mostly build on work that has already been done within the Quad, which Biden elevated to summit level in 2021.
“A new Quad maritime security initiative would send a very strong signal to China, that its maritime bullying is unacceptable, and that it would be met with coordinated action by this coalition of like-minded nations,” said Lisa Curtis said, a senior fellow and director of the Indo-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security.
Analysts and officials said Biden hosting the Quad is part of efforts to institutionalize the body ahead his departure from office and that of Kishida, and before elections in Australia next year.
In Philadelphia on Friday, Albanese said he was confident the AUKUS defense pact of Australia, the UK and the US — formed in 2021 to address shared worries about China’s growing power — would be supported by any future US administration.
“There is no question in my mind that AUKUS will continue to have the support of any future US administration,” Albanese said in a televised media conference from Philadelphia.
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