Global Courant 2023-05-21 01:33:43
Leaders of Australia, India, Japan and the United States issue a statement calling for stability in the Indo-Pacific region.
The leaders of the Quad group – Australia, India, Japan and the United States – have made a thinly veiled swipe at Beijing’s behavior at a Hiroshima summit.
US President Joe Biden and his three partners in the group did not mention China by name on Saturday, but the superpower was clearly targeted by language in a joint statement calling for “peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific maritime realm”.
“We strongly oppose destabilizing or unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo through force or coercion,” the statement said, using diplomatic language that appeared to refer to China’s economic tactics to influence poorer countries, as well as its military expansion in the Pacific.
“We express serious concern about the militarization of disputed features, the dangerous use of Coast Guard and maritime militia vessels and attempts to disrupt other countries’ offshore exploitation activities,” the statement added, clearly referring to China’s construction of bases on former offshore reefs. and harassment of non-Chinese vessels in disputed waters.
The Quad leaders held their meeting while they were already meeting in Hiroshima for a Group of 7 summit.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was due to receive Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Sydney next week.
However, Biden backed down, saying he had to return to Washington from Japan on Sunday to negotiate the US debt ceiling with Republican opponents.
Biden apologized for forcing the change of plans and has invited Albanians to the White House for a state visit.
In their statement, they emphasized the Quad’s support for infrastructure improvements across the vast Asia-Pacific region, while in another apparent dig in China, they said they would support such investments but would not impose “unsustainable debt” on aid recipients . .
Among the projects Quad leaders highlighted was the “urgent need to support high-quality submarine cable networks in the Indo-Pacific, which are essential for global growth and prosperity”. They announced a partnership to leverage their country’s expertise in the specialized maritime cable sector.
They also said an existing pilot program for high-tech monitoring of illegal fishing would be expanded.
And they said they were “deeply concerned” about the repression in Myanmar, condemning “North Korea’s destabilizing ballistic missile launches and pursuit of nuclear weapons in violation of multiple UN Security Council resolutions”.
Kishida warned that the security environment has become even more difficult since the alliance’s most recent meeting last year. Modi announced that the next summit of the four countries would be hosted by India in 2024.
