Japan is set to host the next QUAD summit after Australian general elections in May this year. The summit looks certain as President Biden has accepted Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s invitation to visit Tokyo in mid-2022. The Japanese P.M. had expressed his country’s intention to host the summit during his virtual meeting with President Biden on 21st January.
The summit dates will however be finalised and announced and formal invites will be sent only after Australian general elections in May as well as taking into account convenience of all the four countries, as per a report by Hindustan Times (HT).
QUAD or Quadrilateral Security Dialogue is an informal grouping of four Indo-Pacific countries, i.e., The United States, Japan, Australia, and India, with the objective of upholding the strategy of “Free and Open Indo-Pacific.” It seeks to enforce rule of law and freedom of navigation in the Indian Ocean and the South China sea as well as securing the crucial Sea Lines of Communication (SLOC) to uphold free maritime trade in the face of aggressive Chinese posturing in the region. It also seeks to reinforce and protect territorial integrity of Indo-Pacific countries with which China has a maritime dispute. The QUAD’s agenda has been expanded to include COVID19 response, climate change, renewable energy and infrastructure funding. The previous QUAD summit was held in September 2021 in the United States.
Also read| A new-look Rajpath to host Republic Day celebrations
QUAD has gained significance especially in the post-pandemic world where global economic recovery has been impeded by supply-chain crisis which has shot up fuel prices as well as inflation across the world. It has envisioned an outlook for substituting the current supply chains dominated by China with diversifying manufacturing of critical equipment (such as semiconductors) and intensifying economic cooperation especially on the back of high trade deficits which the U.S., Australia and India sustain vis-à-vis China.
QUAD meeting will be a significant event in in international politics given the current geopolitics bickering between the U.S. and Russia over Ukraine, Yemeni Houthis launching drone attacks over major facilities in the U.A.E, China’s ever-increasing military aggression towards Taiwan and a global economy battered by new COVID variant and a very high food inflation. QUAD will also focus on enhancing its economic, political and military dialogue with Southeast Asian countries, given they overlook trade routes worth USD 3.4 trillion annually as well as their (Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Brunei) maritime disputes with China. India is currently developing the Indonesian port of Sabang which sits next to the Malacca Strait, a narrow sea passage crucial to Chinese trade.
The first ever QUAD meeting took place in 2017 at the level of Foreign Ministers of the four countries on the sidelines of ASEAN summit. The first in-person QUAD meet between the leaders of the four countries took place in Washington D.C in 2021.
