HIROSHIMA (dpa-AFX) – US President Joe Biden sees the Indo-Pacific region as a key region in global politics. “I believe that the future of our world will be written in large part in the Indo-Pacific,” Biden said at a meeting with the leaders of Japan, India and Australia — Fumio Kishida, Narendra Modi and Anthony Albanese — on the sidelines of the G7 on Saturday summit in Hiroshima, Japan. Biden evoked the partnership of the four countries of the so-called quad format. The partners have achieved a lot in recent years and deepened their relationships.
“Our mission remains the same,” Biden said. It is about advancing the vision of a free, open, secure and prosperous Indo-Pacific region.
Kishida warned that the security environment has become even more difficult since the round’s most recent meeting last year. “The free and open international order based on the rule of law is under threat.” Modi announced that the next summit of the four countries will be held in India in 2024.
The quad states had actually wanted to come together in a few days in Australia for an extensive meeting. Due to a domestic budgetary crisis, Biden had canceled the visit to Australia and a stopover in Papua New Guinea and announced that he would return to Washington directly from Japan in order to avert an imminent default by the US government. The group therefore moved their deliberations to Hiroshima, albeit in a significantly slimmed-down version.
The USA and Japan are part of the G7 group, while India and Australia are not – but they are guests at the summit of the seven leading democratic industrial nations in Hiroshima.
Since taking office, Biden has placed a special focus on the Indo-Pacific in his government’s foreign policy – among other things, to counter China’s striving for power in the region. He also initiated the annual meetings of the Quad countries. Broadly speaking, Indo-Pacific means a region from the Indian to the northern Pacific Ocean, encompassing most of Asia and extending to the west coast of the US./jac/DP/men