Leaders of Australia, India, Japan and the US were yesterday to announce plans for new security initiatives in the Indian Ocean, as outgoing US President Joe Biden hosts counterparts from the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) he has pushed as a counterweight to China.
Biden on Friday met with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at his home near Wilmington, Delaware, where the two discussed bilateral cooperation across defense and security, including in the Indo-Pacific region, Albanese’s office said in a statement yesterday.
The US president was yesterday to welcome Albanese, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida for a four-way discussion to stress the importance of maintaining the Quad, which he sees as a signature foreign policy achievement, before he leaves office early next year.
Photo: Reuters
Senior Biden administration officials told reporters that the leaders would announce plans to expand an Indo-Pacific partnership for maritime domain awareness initiative launched two years ago to include the Indian Ocean region.
The leaders would also announce a plan for joint coast guard operations that would see Australian, Japanese and Indian personnel spend time on a US Coast Guard vessel, and plans for increased military logistics cooperation, the officials said.
They said the leaders would step up work to provide critical and security technologies, including a new open radio access network, to the Pacific islands and Southeast Asia, regions of intense competition with China, Washington’s main strategic competitor.
Analysts said the expected outcomes would mostly build on work that has already been done within the Quad, which Biden elevated to summit level in 2021.
“A new Quad maritime security initiative would send a very strong signal to China, that its maritime bullying is unacceptable, and that it would be met with coordinated action by this coalition of like-minded nations,” said Lisa Curtis said, a senior fellow and director of the Indo-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security.
Analysts and officials said Biden hosting the Quad is part of efforts to institutionalize the body ahead his departure from office and that of Kishida, and before elections in Australia next year.
In Philadelphia on Friday, Albanese said he was confident the AUKUS defense pact of Australia, the UK and the US — formed in 2021 to address shared worries about China’s growing power — would be supported by any future US administration.
“There is no question in my mind that AUKUS will continue to have the support of any future US administration,” Albanese said in a televised media conference from Philadelphia.
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
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