The Quad countries — India, the US, Japan, and Australia — announced a joint initiative to ramp up the COVID-19 vaccine supply in Asia, mounting a challenge to China in the first-ever summit of the group on Friday.
US president Joe Biden, who has vowed to reinvigorate alliances in the face of growing worries about China, in his opening remarks said that the Quad is going to be a vital arena for cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region. The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad meet) was also attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Australian PM Scott Morrison, and Japanese PM Yoshihide Suga.
In his speech, Biden also described the Quad as a new mechanism to enhance cooperation and raise mutual ambition as they address accelerating climate change, PTI reported.
"We know our commitments... Our region is governed by international law, committed to all the universal values and free from coercion but I am optimistic about our prospect," he said, in an apparent reference to China which is flexing its muscle in the region.
Biden added that there was a need to focus on generating domestic demand and driving sustainable global growth. He also talked about having an ambitious new joint partnership that is going to boost vaccine manufacturing and strengthen vaccinations to benefit the entire Indo-Pacific region.
"We are establishing a new mechanism to enhance our cooperation and raise our mutual ambition as we address accelerating climate change," he said. The US president also mentioned the commitment to ensure that the region is governed by international law and that it's free from coercion.
"I am optimistic about our prospects," Biden added.
"The Quad is going to be a vital arena of cooperation in the Indo Pacific and I look forward to working closely with all of you in the coming years," Biden told Quad leaders, as he invited Modi to speak.
"It's great to see you," Biden told Modi.
Addressing the virtual summit, Modi said that the Quad has come of age and its agenda of topics like vaccines, climate change and emerging technologies makes it a force for global good.
In his opening remarks, Modi also talked about shared values and promoting a secure, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific. "We are united by our democratic values, and our commitment to a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific. Our agenda today covering areas like vaccines, climate change and emerging technologies makes the Quad a force for global good," he said.
"I see this positive vision as an extension of India's ancient philosophy of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, which regards the world as one family," Modi said.
"We will work together, closer than ever before for advancing our shared values and promoting a secure, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific," he said.
The prime minister said the holding of the summit, which is the first conclave of the top leaders of the Quadrilateral alliance, shows that the Quad has come of age and it will now remain an important pillar of stability in the region.
In his remarks, Biden said there was a need to focus on generating domestic demand and driving sustainable global growth. He also talked about having an ambitious new joint partnership that is going to boost vaccine manufacturing and strengthen vaccinations to benefit the entire Indo-Pacific region.
"We are establishing a new mechanism to enhance our cooperation and raise our mutual ambition as we address accelerating climate change," he said. The US president also mentioned the commitment to ensure that the region is governed by international law and that it's free from coercion.
"I am optimistic about our prospects," Biden added.
Australian Prime Minister Morrison said that the summit marked "a new dawn in the Indo-Pacific."
"As four leaders of great liberal democracies in the Indo-Pacific, may our partnership be the enabler of peace, stability and prosperity, and to do so inclusively with the many nations of our region," Morrison said.
One Billion vaccines by 2022
The most significant among the deliverables envisaged in the summit is a coronavirus vaccine initiative that will allow new manufacturing capacity to be added in India for exports to the Indo-Pacific region, sources said.
This was confirmed was US officials as well, according to AFP.
Ahead of the talks, US officials had said the "Quad" nations have agreed to work together to produce up to one billion vaccine doses by 2022 as the world seeks to turn the page on the devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic, AFP reported.
The plan would see pharmaceutical hub India manufacturing the single-dose vaccine from US-based Johnson & Johnson backed by financial support from Japan, with Australia taking charge of shipments.
"What we've tried to put together is a broad-based approach that addresses the acute shortage of vaccines across Southeast Asia in particular," a US official told reporters on condition of anonymity.
US officials did not immediately specify target countries but the initiative comes as China, where the deadly virus was first detected in late 2019, works to transform its image into that of a global healer.
China has shipped vaccines as far afield as the Dominican Republic and provided doses to international partners such as Pakistan and Zimbabwe.
The Quad format has been growing for more than a decade, but Friday's talks are the first at the leaders' level and come as all four democracies see relations with China deteriorate.
China over the past year has engaged in a deadly clash with Indian forces in the Himalayas, stepped up activity near islands administered by Japan and imposed sanctions on Australian products following a series of disputes.
The Biden administration, however, has been careful not to link the Quad explicitly to China — a shift in rhetoric after former president Donald Trump's strident denunciations of Beijing.
State Department spokesman Ned Price said that the Quad is not focused "on any single issue".
"We have shared interests in standing up for universal values and rights. We have shared economic interests. We have shared security interests. We have deep people-to-people ties with all of these countries," Price said.
Australian prime minister Morrison said that China should not be concerned by the talks.
The Quad, Morrison told reporters, is about "liberal democracies standing up for our values, coming together and ensuring that we are an anchor for peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific."
'Unparalleled' US asset
The Biden administration has said alliances — many of which were badly rattled by the vitriolic Trump — will be key in achieving its goals.
Earlier this month, the White House cast China as its top challenger and said the United States can help counter Beijing's "aggression" by "bolstering and defending our unparalleled network of allies and partners."
The Quad summit kicks off a flurry of such diplomacy.
Japan announced Friday that Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga will become the first foreign leader to have White House talks with Biden, who has tried to set an example by limiting travel and meetings during the pandemic.
Conditions permitting, the trip will take place "as early as the first half of April," top government spokesman Katsunobu Kato told reporters.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin are also paying a joint visit next week to both Japan and South Korea on their first foreign travel, with Austin continuing on to India.
After showcasing the alliance, Blinken and US national security adviser Jake Sullivan will meet top Chinese officials in Alaska late next week in what the Biden administration has promised to be a blunt airing of US concerns.
Blinken has said he will press on trade and human rights, including China's sweeping new curbs on Hong Kong's elections and the mass incarceration of Uighurs and other mostly Muslim minorities, which both Biden and Trump have described as genocide.
Cooperation between countries should not 'target' third party, says China
Asked for China's reaction to the Quad conclave, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a media briefing in Beijing that state-to-state exchanges and cooperation should "help enhance mutual understanding and trust among regional countries, instead of targeting against or undermining the interests of any third party".
"We hope relevant countries will follow the principles of openness, inclusiveness and win-win results, refrain from forming closed and exclusive "cliques" and act in a way that is conducive to regional peace, stability and prosperity," Zhao said.
China's state-run Global Times newspaper echoed a similar sentiment, criticising the Quad summit as a US plot against Beijing, saying in an opinion piece that India — which has rapidly warming relations with the United States but is not a treaty-bound ally — should have maintained a distance.
"The Quad is not an alliance of like-minded countries as the US claims," the newspaper said, opining that the three other nations face "the embarrassment of being between the pressure from the US and their own interests with China".
With inputs from agencies
from Firstpost India Latest News https://ift.tt/3eukiQ9
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