Quad summit cancelled after Biden calls off trip to Australia

New York: Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said that a Quad summit would not go ahead in Sydney next week without US President Joe Biden. Australia, India, Japan and the US are members of Quad.

Biden postponed his trip to Australia due to debt ceiling negotiations in Washington.

Albanese said the leaders of Australia, the United States, India and Japan would instead meet at the G7 in Japan this weekend.

“The Quad leaders meeting will not be going ahead in Sydney next week. We, though will be having that discussion between Quad leaders in Japan,” Albanese said, according to news agency Reuters.

He also stated that a bilateral programme in Sydney with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi could still go ahead next week.

In November 2017, India, Japan, the US and Australia gave shape to the long-pending proposal of setting up the “Quad” to develop a new strategy to keep the critical sea routes in the Indo-Pacific free of any influence amid China’s aggressive behavior in the region.

China is engaged in hotly contested territorial disputes in the South and East China Seas. Beijing has also made substantial progress in militarising its man-made islands in the past few years.

Beijing claims sovereignty over all of the South China Sea. But Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei and Taiwan have counterclaims. In the East China Sea, China has territorial disputes with Japan.

Image courtesy of SAT file photo

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