Australia Cancels Quad Summit Following The Postponement Of President Joe Biden's Trip
In response to US President Joe Biden’s decision to postpone his trip to Australia, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese indicated on Wednesday that the Quad leaders summit scheduled for Sydney next week will not take place.
Australia, the United States, India, and Japan’s presidents will instead convene at the G7 Summit in Japan this weekend, according to Albanese.
Given the uncertainties and ongoing negotiations with the opposition Republican party to prevent America from going into debt default for the first time in history, US President Biden said on Tuesday that he will postpone the Australia and Papua New Guinea legs of his Asia trip.
“The Quad leaders’ meeting will not be going ahead in Sydney next week,” Albanese said in Tweed Heads, a town in New South Wales.
Albanese says it’s still possible that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Sydney next week, ABC News reported.
While he attempts to negotiate a compromise with Republicans to keep the US from defaulting on its debts at the end of this month, President Biden has been forced to focus on domestic politics.
“Because that has to be solved prior to 1 June — otherwise there are quite drastic consequences for the US economy, which will flow on to the global economy — he understandably has had to make that decision,” Albanese said.
The Prime Minister added that Biden was “disappointed” that he couldn’t visit Australia and that the Quad leaders would try to meet in Hiroshima on the sidelines of the G7 leaders’ summit.
“All four leaders — President Biden, Prime Minister Kishida, Prime Minister Modi and myself — will be at the G7, held in Hiroshima on Saturday and Sunday. We are attempting to get together over that period of time [and] I’ll have a bilateral discussion with President Biden,” he said.
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“At this stage, we haven’t got a time locked in for that arrangement.”
Albanese said it was still possible that Prime Minister Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida would visit Sydney next week, but officials in all three countries were still trying to confirm their plans.
“We are in discussions with the Quad leaders over today. We’ll make further announcements about that, but Prime Minister Modi would certainly be a very welcome guest here next week,” he said.
In November 2017, India, Japan, the US and Australia gave shape to the long-pending proposal of setting up the “Quad” to develop a new strategy to keep the critical sea routes in the Indo-Pacific free of any influence amid China’s aggressive behaviour in the region.
China is engaged in hotly contested territorial disputes in the South and East China Seas. Beijing has also made substantial progress in militarising its man-made islands in the past few years.
Beijing claims sovereignty over all of the South China Sea. But Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei and Taiwan have counterclaims. In the East China Sea, China has territorial disputes with Japan.
