WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden will hold a private summit – the leaders of “Quad” – Australia, India, Japan and the United States – next week, a senior US official told Reuters on Monday.
The Summit will be held in the White House on September 24, the official said.
Australian Prime Minister, India and Japan – Scott Morrison, Narendra Modi and Yoshihide Suga – Expected in the United States next week to attend the UN General Assembly in New York.
Virtual meetings of leaders of quad countries, which have tried to increase cooperation in facing Chinese strength and firmness, held in March.
In the meeting, the leaders promised to cooperate with Covid-19 vaccines and climate and to ensure free and open indo-Pacific in the face of the challenges of Beijing.
“The host of the Quad leaders showed Biden-Harris’s administrative priority involved in the Indo-Pacific, including through a new multilateral configuration to meet the challenges of the 21st century,” said Senior Administrative Officer told Reuters.
The Biden Indo Pacific Coordinator, Kurt Campbell, said that in July the meeting in-people who had long been planned must bring the “firm” commitment to the diplomacy and vaccine infrastructure.
Biden, who pushed for major infrastructure spending at home, said in March he had suggested to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson that democratic countries must have an infrastructure plan to rival the massive belt and Chinese street initiatives, which involve projects from East Asia to Europe.
Senior US officials said Quad leaders would be “focused on deepening our bonds and advancing practical collaboration in fields such as fighting Covid-19, handling the climate crisis, partnering in technology that emerged and virtual, and promoting indo-Pacific free and open.
“The initiative of the vaccine from the first summit was stopped after India, the largest vaccine producer in the world, was hit by a wave of disaster infection and stopped the exports of vaccines.
In the March Summit, four leaders agreed upon by Indian Medicine Eld Biological will produce at least one billion doses of the Coronavirus vaccine at the end of 2022, especially for Southeast Asian countries and the Pacific.
Kyodo Japan’s news reported last week that Suga would visit Washington this month for a quad meeting despite his tenure as the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party in power – and by default as the Prime Minister of Japan – ended on September 30.
Suga became the first leader who held the White Summit of the face of face to face with Biden in April, underlining the Japanese central role in US efforts to face under China.
Quad meetings will come after the image of Biden has baked US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
US officials said those who ended the longest American war would allow administration to divert resources and attention to overcome China’s related problems.