The United States, India, Japan and Australia will release a joint summit statement that has "some of the strongest language" on North Korea and the South China Sea Saturday, according to a senior US administration official, what apparently marks a display of unity by leaders from these countries against security threats from Pyongyang and Beijing. In an online press briefing on Friday, the official made the remarks a day before President Joe Biden, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese are scheduled to attend their Quad summit in Wilmington, Delaware, on Saturday.
This comes at a time when growing concerns over North Korea's changing nuclear and ballistic missile threats and Moscow's deepening military cooperation with Pyongyang, as well as China's assertiveness in the South China Sea, have been reported by Yonhap news agency.
"I would say that the Quad agenda always focuses on a wide range of strategic profits in the Indo-Pacific that absolutely includes considerations with respect to the PRC, including on the economic front, in the maritime space and elsewhere," the official said, referring to China by its official name, the People's Republic of China.
"But it will also include a focus on the DPRK and several other key considerations as well. I think that you can expect to see in the upcoming joint statement.some of the strongest language that the Quad has ever produced, particularly on the South China Sea and on North Korea," the official said.
DPRK is an abbreviation for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
It truly represents a convergence of views among the Quad leaders on a set of security challenges in the Indo-Pacific," the official noted.
Separately in a press briefing on Thursday, Mira Rapp-Hooper, the senior director for East Asia and Oceania at the National Security Council, mentioned that Quad leaders would be discussing the North Korean security challenge as well as deepening military alignment between the North and Russia.
On Friday, in a joint briefing, senior US administration officials said that on the occasion of this weekend's summit, the four countries will launch the first-ever Quad Coast Guard exercise and a Quad logistics network that will enable the militaries of the four countries to share cargo space on aircraft and vessels for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief missions.
They also pointed out that officials launched the "House and Senate Quad Caucuses" in bipartisan and bicameral support for the Quad platform.
The leaders will have the Quad "Cancer Moonshot" event, a signature health security deliverable from the leaders' meeting, on Saturday, according to the officials.
This is an initiative to fight cervical cancer, a form of cancer that can be prevented, as stated by officials, through vaccination, screening, and more treatment donated by the Quad countries.
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