Second In-Person Quad Meet Could Be Held In May: Report

The Quad summit will be held in Japan towards May this year but the dates of the meeting will be officially conveyed by the Japanese authorities after the Australian general elections in May, according to a report by news agency Hindustan Times.

Earlier on Friday, US president Joe Biden met Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida over a virtual bilateral summit where both discussed Chinese threat in the Indo-Pacific, North Korea’s ballistic missile tests and Russia-Ukraine tensions.

During the meeting, Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida welcomed his US counterpart to Japan, which Biden welcomed and said that he was looking forward to visiting Japan for an in-person bilateral summit and meeting of the Quad leaders. The Quad grouping consists of Australia, India, Japan and the United States.

The meeting between the Quad nations which is expected to take place within a few months time will focus primarily on keeping the Indo-Pacific free and open. It will also focus on issues related to climate change, preparing strongly for future pandemics and a way towards economic revival in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Biden’s meeting with Kishida also comes at a time when the US president completed one year in office. A senior analyst told Japanese news agency Nikkei that the meeting with Kishida coinciding with Biden’s one year in office signifies that the US continues to direct its focus and energy in containing Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific.

Focus was also on tensions in Ukraine as Russia amassed close to 100,000 troops across the border. The UK earlier warned that Russian aggression could give China the courage to launch aggressive moves in the Indo-Pacific.

Kishida following his meeting with Biden said that both leaders spent ‘quite a bit of time discussing China’, according to the report by Nikkei. Both leaders also discussed issues pertaining to Taiwan and Hong Kong and hoped that peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait will be maintained. Human rights abuses in Xinjiang province of China and persecution of Uyghur Muslims also featured during the discussions.

Read all the Latest News here