Quad tackles Indo-Pacific 'coercion' amid worries over China

MELBOURNE • The United States, Australia, Japan and India pledged yesterday to deepen cooperation to ensure the Indo-Pacific region is free from "coercion", a thinly veiled swipe at China's economic and military expansion.

Foreign ministers of the so-called Quad group, meeting in the Australian city of Melbourne, also promised to increase cooperation on Covid-19, cyber threats and counter-terrorism.

In a joint statement, they vowed to work on humanitarian relief, disaster assistance and the delivery of infrastructure to the region, and condemned North Korea's "destabilising ballistic missile launches" in violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions.

They said their informal Quad grouping was determined to deepen engagement with regional partners, and increase their capacity to combat unregulated and illegal fishing.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken travels to Fiji today to meet Pacific Island leaders to whom fishing and climate change are likely to be priority issues.

Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne said: "We agreed to boost maritime security support for Indo-Pacific partners to strengthen their maritime domain awareness and ability to develop their offshore resources, to ensure freedom of navigation and overflight, and to combat challenges such as illegal fishing."

The statement from the Quad partners said they "oppose coercive economic policies" that run counter to the World Trade Organisation system, and that they "will work collectively to foster global economic resilience against such actions", a reference to China's recent trade boycotts of Australia and Lithuania.

Mr Blinken arrived in Australia this week as Washington grapples with a dangerous stand-off with Moscow, which has massed some 100,000 troops near Ukraine's border and stoked Western fears of an invasion.

Russia denies it has such plans.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration wants to show the world that its long-term strategic focus remains in the Asia-Pacific and that a major foreign policy crisis in one part of the globe does not distract it from key priorities.

Asked by reporters yesterday whether confrontation with China in the Indo-Pacific was inevitable, Mr Blinken replied that "nothing is inevitable".

"Having said that, I think we share concerns that in recent years China has been acting more aggressively at home and more aggressively in the region," he added.

China has denounced the Quad as a Cold War construct and a clique "targeting other countries".

The Quad nations have begun holding annual naval exercises across the Indo-Pacific to demonstrate interoperability, and the US itself conducts freedom of navigation patrols in the South China Sea.

Mr Blinken also said the junta in Myanmar has doubled down on repression and violence in the country, and that US President Joe Biden will focus on the situation there when he meets Asean leaders. "I think it is painfully obvious that the developments there are deeply, deeply troubling," Mr Blinken said.

He said Washington supported Asean's five-point consensus that the junta in Myanmar agreed to last year, and that it needed to be implemented.

"This is something President Biden is going to focus on in the near future when he hosts the Asean leaders in Washington."

Mr Blinken's trip comes after China and Russia declared last week a "no limits" strategic partnership to build a new international order based on their own interpretations of human rights and democracy.

REUTERS