Senior officials from the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue’s four members met on Thursday to discuss ways to advance cooperation in areas like infrastructure, maritime security, and humanitarian aid to ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific.
Officials from India, Australia, Japan, and the United States met virtually to discuss progress on key issues such as the Quad vaccine partnership, critical and emerging technologies, and climate change. The Quad decided to form working groups focused on these three areas during the grouping’s first summit in March.
The meeting on Thursday was a follow-up to the February 18 meeting of foreign ministers and the March 12 virtual Quad leaders summit. The officials discussed the wide-ranging impact of Covid-19 in the Indo-Pacific, as well as the importance of collaborative efforts to contain the pandemic and ensure health security and a quick economic recovery, according to the external affairs ministry.
According to the ministry, officials looked into collaboration in areas such as resilient supply chains, emerging and critical technologies, maritime security, cyber security, counter-terrorism, infrastructure and connectivity, higher education, climate change, humanitarian assistance, and disaster relief.
According to a readout from Japan’s foreign ministry, the officials agreed to advance practical cooperation on these issues in order to achieve a free and open Indo-Pacific. The officials also discussed regional issues such as North Korea’s situation, the East and South China Seas, and Myanmar.
A statement from the US state department said the “four democracies acknowledged that global security and prosperity depends on the region remaining inclusive, resilient, and healthy”.
The officials also examined ways to advance cooperation such as strategic challenges confronting the region, countering disinformation, promoting democracy and human rights, strengthening international institutions such as the UN and related bodies, and “supporting countries vulnerable to coercive actions in the Indo-Pacific”, the US statement added.
With funding from the American and Japanese development banks, the Quad vaccine partnership was formed to manufacture vaccines developed in the United States in India. With the help of Australia’s logistics network, these vaccines were to be distributed to developing countries across the Indo-Pacific.
Quad members hoped to begin distributing vaccines in the second quarter of this year, but their plans were derailed when India was hit by a second wave of Covid-19 infections in March, and all vaccine stocks were repurposed for the domestic vaccination programme.
