MELBOURNE: The United States, Australia, Japan and India pledged on Friday to deepen cooperation to ensure the Indo-Pacific region was 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 UN 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.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken travels onwards to Fiji on Saturday to meet with Pacific island leaders to whom fishing and climate change are likely to be priority issues.
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